


When the Levee Breaks

by whentheynameyoujoy



Series: The Lies They Tell [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anger, Battle, Bigotry & Prejudice, Blood and Violence, Emotional Hurt, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Malfoy Manor, Minor Character Death, Mystery, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, POV Multiple, Pre-Relationship, Rescue, Resentment, Second War with Voldemort, Spy Draco Malfoy, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:21:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 55,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25684954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whentheynameyoujoy/pseuds/whentheynameyoujoy
Summary: In the weeks following Christmas, there have been moments when Hermione and Draco wished Moody hadn’t contacted them again. Three months have passed and the time’s come for them to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: The Lies They Tell [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/900072
Comments: 64
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was supposed to be done in a month, six weeks tops. Instead, it took me over two and a half years.  
> To everyone who read the previous three parts of this series and stuck around to read this one, asking when it was going to be finished…  
> I’m sorry.  
> In my defence, I didn’t exactly set out to be the GRRM of the Dramione fandom. But goddamn it, this story. It kept growing and growing like a tumour, three chapters becoming seven becoming twelve becoming sixteen, one POV morphing into two, general rewrites and editing turning into major rehauls as I decided to include what I had intended to be asides, and the original ten instalments and two POVs I had planned ballooning into thirteen parts and five narrators.  
> Plus Darth Life kept singing his siren song which is pretty tempting when you’re on the verge of a burnout.  
> Kill me.  
> Chapters will be posted at weekly intervals, one each Monday to give me time to work on the next two instalments so that there isn’t another monstrous delay (fic no. 5 should be about the length of First Encounter, fic no. 6 around half this one but smaller in narrative scope. It’s fic no. 7 which haunts my dreams…)  
> As always, don’t hesitate to comment or contact me, here or on the [hellsite](https://whentheynameyoujoy.tumblr.com/) where I soon will be vacationing by yelling about The Witcher.  
> Hope you’ll have fun and thanks so much for reading.

**31st of December, 1998**

He barely made it to the bathroom before the bile rose up his throat, sputtering from his mouth and into the toilet bowl, the mixture of horror, fear, and disgust impossible to control any longer.

As he spat out the last strings of saliva, the arguments kept running through his mind, both old and new ones, his own and those spouted by others, all contradicted by a voice from another life, screaming at him that he couldn’t, that he wanted to remain whole…

_No._ He grabbed the edges of the bowl and scrambled to his feet. _You don’t have the luxury. You’re not doing it for yourself. You’re doing it for_ her _. Whatever it takes._

Moving over to the washbasin, he turned the tap on, rinsed his mouth, and splashed some water on his sweaty forehead, telling himself the goose bumps on his forearms were simply a matter of cold.

_First, you’ll get Fernsby to transfer you to Scabior’s unit. Being in a rover troop will give you a space to manoeuvre and there’s no way the old fool won’t make you his second-in-command. Insubordination would do the trick with Fernsby but having her think Scabior might need to beef up his forces will be better in the long run. He’s screwed up a lot of missions lately; all it will take for you to get the boot is laugh about it somewhere the hag can hear. She won’t be missing you, and it’s a shit enough assignment for her to want you doing it. And once you’re done with that…_

Looking up from the basin, he was met with a greenish face staring at him from the mirror, determination setting in and erasing the dread from its features.

_Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it._


	2. Chapter 2

**7th of April, 1999**

_“EXPULSO!”_

Ducking the Revulsion Jinx Pansy cast at him, Weasley waved his wand to set off the smoke bomb planted smack in the middle of the abandoned village, and as it exploded with a loud puff, shooting out grey tendrils which enveloped the area in a thick cloud, Draco said a silent prayer that for the love of Slytherin’s bollock hair, let me walk out of this insanity alive.

Gesturing to the advance guard under his command, Draco barked out, “OK, everybody spread out, we’re going in. Pans, Flint, and Davis, you go from the left. I, Nott, and Bulstrode will take the right.” He nodded at the burly mass of black by his elbow. “Greg, you hold back and try to figure out how to disperse this bloody smoke. It seems too heavy to be blown away, but it’d be nice if we didn’t have to worry about landing arse first on whatever pile of whimsy the twins secure the headquarters with.”

He saved the most important bit for last. “The rest of the Order is somewhere out here and we don’t need them getting warned, so don’t let Weasley’s people get away. But no killing—we may have to interrogate the guards first, so captures only.”

Moving in the direction of the dense grey cloud, Draco gave a final shout, “That’s it, let’s go!”

He didn’t bother to make sure they obeyed his command; the hesitant pattering behind him was confirmation enough.

Not waiting a second longer, Draco set out running to where the smoke formed a defined, seemingly solid wall. As soon as he jumped through it and an impenetrable mass of grey assaulted his vision, he abandoned his position in the centre of the line and headed diagonally to the right where he intuited the first row of old houses.

A dark stain shaped like a human body appeared a few feet ahead of him, but he didn’t worry about it and swerved to avoid it. After all, he’d drilled it into Weasel that the Order’s scouts could cast nothing but defensive spells, and even those if they were under direct attack. It wasn’t their mission to fight, not at first; it was to keep the approaching Death Eater squad confused, blind, and busy until Ron Weasley got his signal to move onto the second part of the plan, the full extent of which was known only to him, Draco, and Moody.

As Draco passed a female figure and barged through the open entrance of a nearby house, he couldn’t decide whether it was admirable loyalty or skull-crushing stupidity which made the scouts march into a situation they knew nothing about, defenceless and under the lead of Ron “I Have the Attention Span of a Plimpy” Weasley.

He ran through the bare hallway and into the nearest room, ignoring the sound of Marcus Flint casting a binding spell and a male voice deflecting somewhere outside; the first signs the game of cat and mouse started. Crouching down in the corner, Draco reached into his pocket and took out one of the three shrunken cylinders Granger had given him. He laid the miniature widget on the floor, enlarged it to its full size, and without pausing began setting it up as he’d done with a mock-up so many times he could pull it off while sleepwalking.

***

It went far beyond anything he’d signed up for. When Moody arranged a new meeting with him and Granger at the end of the year, having missed the Christmas one completely due to an unexpected case of Death Eaters trying and failing to seize weapons from a hidden Weasley workshop they had no business being aware of, he arrived with unforeseen news—it was time for both Mister Malfoy and Miss Granger to lend their hands in a more involved manner, seeing how it was in both of their interests to move the war effort along and make it easier for Mr. Potter to conduct his mission in peace.

All things considered, Draco didn’t think he was in a position to argue.

On paper, the plan was pretty simple—Granger and Seamus Finnigan were to join Fred and George Weasley in their workshop and help them speed up a project they’d been struggling to finish for the past year. Draco, meanwhile, was going to set up a trail to create the impression that the Order could soon be obliterated with one decisive blow.

In reality, it was a lot more complicated. For one, Draco couldn’t wait until the last moment before bursting into the headquarters, squealing, “Why don’t we go on a bonding trip to bumfuck nowhere, lads!” He had to paint an intricate picture, dropping Moody’s bread crumbs until they led to something bound to make the high command drool.

It was Jugson who, at Draco’s suggestion, had his men pore over the jumble of documents left behind by the Order which turned out to imply that the Order’s structure might be far more centralised than previously believed. It was the Snatchers Draco made into his drinking buddies who got the idea to sit down one evening and think about where in Britain they recently encountered the most blood-traitors. It was Scabior who, after one of many, many stake-outs and roving missions Draco helped him lead, came to report that a pristine valley located deep in the Welsh Snowdonia bore a strong magical signature.

But it was Draco himself who, right in front of a shocked Travers and Mulciber, captured Ron Weasley yesterday night and promised him a pardon for his entire family of blood traitors if he wrote down the final piece of the puzzle—that the Snowdonian valley contained the entirety of the resistance, living in an abandoned Muggle village concealed from view by the Fidelius Charm and with each run-down house hiding one individual cell of the Order, magically folded into its own pocket of space for good measure, with its own secret entrance.

And as luck had it, Weasley as the new leader of Dumbledore’s Army just so happened to be the settlement’s Secret Keeper.

After handing over a scrap of parchment with the location of the Order’s general headquarters written on it, Weasley changed his mind about joining the Dark Lord and somehow, mysteriously managed to run away earlier this morning—something Draco took a great care to be sorry for when reporting the newest developments to the bigwigs. Still, despite Weasley’s escape, the higher-ups decided not to walk back Scabior’s decision that maybe, just maybe Draco had proved himself enough as a rover to be promoted and given his current gig as a squad leader.

With a couple of minutes separating them from winning the war, there was no point in demoting him even if they were so inclined. And they didn’t object when Draco got on his knees and begged for one last chance; to be allowed to take the squad he’d assembled and pursue Weasley to the headquarters.

Nettled superiors chewing him out, however, wasn’t the only problem he found himself dealing with.

Because as much as he’d tried to impersonate a house elf, three months had been how long he managed to postpone reporting the exact nature of what the army was chasing while keeping the high command convinced victory was within their grasp. But by the turn of April, Goyle’s father let it slip the Dark Lord was considering to drop the venture since he viewed it as nothing more than a passing distraction from his failing hunt for Potter. Draco immediately met up with Moody and Granger and told them that whatever the twins cooked up had to be enough regardless of completion, otherwise they needed to pull a Fudge on the mission and move on.

After thinking about it for a minute, Moody, contrary to what Draco had been hoping for, refused to give up. Instead, he asked Granger to show him what she, the Weasleys, and Finnigan came up with so that he could adjust the plan.

***

Paying no mind to the racket of his cohorts trying to capture the Order’s scouts outside, Draco moved to connect the last wires of the device before him.

Everything considered, it was hard for him to ignore the impressive amount of skill and effort which went into creating the thing.

***

Judging from what Granger told him, the Weasley twins had long been busting their arses creating a remotely controlled tool to knock out the most dangerous enemies at once, without putting their own side at risk. But no matter the angle they approached it from, the desired outcome kept eluding them. Their work produced a lot of useful-slash-gruesome stuff along the way, much of which Draco had encountered in the field as it gave hell to Death Eaters on a daily basis. But the yearned-for game-changer? No joy.

This was where Finnigan with his baffling love for Muggle science and penchant for blowing stuff up in his gob came in.

To hear Granger tell it, once he directed everyone’s focus from expanding on the properties of the dungbomb and began talking about “antimatter”, “superposition principle”, or “Penning trap”, the group found a way out of the dead end they’d manoeuvred themselves into and created something Granger extoled as “the dawn of quantum sorcery”: three glass-metal cylinders which established a connection with each another based on the Protean Charm and produced its own vanishing magic as Draco preferred to think of it, fuelled by a built-in Acceleration Charm and kept in check by a system of Muggle contraptions called magnets, not to mention a butt load of containment and reinforcement spells which had to be activated in a particular order. There was an enchantment to disengage the magnets, causing the magic to touch the interior walls of the containers and shatter them, with the Protean Charm keeping the released energy in a set perimeter.

But although the greatest hurdle had been overcome, the weapon was very much in the first stages of testing. For one, once installed the three parts provided a window of whopping ten minutes during which the person responsible could set them in motion at the most convenient moment. But after those ten minutes passed, the magnets broke down and the device kicked in regardless of what anyone had to say about it. And as a second lovely touch, the thing couldn’t be removed, disconnected, or stopped after each piece was put into place, yet if the delay between installing the first and last one was longer than thirty minutes, the Acceleration Charm refused to kick in and produce anything of use.

Meaning Moody found himself facing a scenario where the Order had to simultaneously set up a complex contraption _and_ lure in the Dark Lord’s army to a spot of its choosing—and to do it within a deadline, with little to no control over who from their own side remained within the radius. The Order’s options were either to duck curses all the while, or sit on their arses, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the enemy to maybe waddle over, perhaps.

It couldn’t be done. The Order needed both calm and peace to prepare the trap, and noise, violence, and chaos to make Death Eaters pursue them and march into it.

In order for the mission to work, the tasks had to be divided so that someone from the outside would install the device.

And that someone, of course, turned out to be none other than Draco himself.

While this position of responsibility did nothing for Draco’s wish to stay away from the spotlight, it did come with other perks—ones he found himself pondering when he sat down last midnight to decide which of his mates were going to make the advance guard and who’d have to look after their own hide.

***

The last unconnected plug went into the last empty socket, the last button was pressed, the cylinder lit up pale green, and the spindly antenna went up with a sharp ping.

_There, done. One down, two more to go._

Draco sprang to his feet, and after casting a Concealment Charm on the device so that it wouldn’t arouse suspicion of the soon-to-emerge Order members, he stormed out of the house and looked around.

Not that there was much to look at, exactly. It was _dark_ ; not the previous dense grey dark which settled on the village after Weasley blew up the giant load of Peruvian powder, but pitch black, the stuff which gave birth to the worst nightmares. Unfortunately, the time to take out the hand of glory didn’t come yet and so Draco had to remain by the houses, blindly shimmying and groping along the walls so that he wouldn’t run into anyone, especially not the person who was attempting to subdue an Order scout nearby, going by the sound of it.

“Wait, wait, wai—!” a voice he recognised as Lavender Brown’s shrieked and went quiet.

Draco gave a mental shrug and forced himself to focus on his snail-paced journey back to where he had passed through the smoky wall. Since the no-killing-captures-only order hadn’t been issued for shits and giggles, it was unlikely Brown suffered anything more serious than a couple of mild injuries and a temporary loss of dignity. It was doubtful she’d be grateful for this form of protection, but she’d live which was the extent of Draco’s willingness to give a toss.

After a few minutes of careful fumbling, the darkness yielded to sharp daylight. He had to close his eyes for a moment before making towards Goyle who kept furiously casting the Repelling Charm with no results whatsoever.

Noticing a fellow fighter approach, Goyle stopped what he was doing. “Oh, hey,” he called out. “What’s the situation?”

Draco stretched his back and took a deep breath. “We’re keeping them on their toes, but we can’t see shit in there. No traps anywhere, though. Any luck dispelling this?” he asked and waved towards the smoke.

“None,” Goyle said. “I don’t have the faintest what the Peruvian stuff is, and it doesn’t react to nothing.”

“Well, keep trying.” Draco took a step closer and adopted a conspiratorial tone. “Listen, Greg, between the two of us, things aren’t too good. We’re chasing the bastards around but sooner or later, one of them is going to get away for long enough to warn the Order.” He clasped Goyle’s shoulder. “So keep your eyes open. If it seems like the Order’s running away or if anything unusual happens, anything at all, don’t wait for my command and summon the army right away, understood?”

Once Goyle nodded, Draco turned around and ran back, satisfied with having ticked off another crucial point on his to-do list.

He plunged into the darkness and didn’t slow down until he almost rammed into the second house in the left row. _Good, this is good_ , Draco thought as he climbed through a broken window, took out the second device, and started setting it up like the cylinder before _._

_One in the middle of the right row, the second at the beginning of the row opposite, and the third presumably at the end. This will create a defined perimeter covering a good chunk of the village. Only an utter twit would blunder inside with markers these obvious._

Maybe it was the stress-fuelled combination of nervousness and adrenaline coursing through his body, tingling all over his skin, but it seemed a minute passed before the antenna clinked and the cylinder lit up.

_Concealment Charm and there, another job well done._

Reaching into his pocket to retrieve a candle and the hand of glory, Draco had to suppress a wave of anticipation threatening to engulf him.

_Two, that’s two already, and so far everything’s been going according to the plan._

A shiver run down his spine as he got up and glanced around the deceptively empty room.

Once again, Mad-Eye had lived up to his name; who else but an utter madman would scrap a network of mostly self-reliant bases which allowed the Order to sail through the war more or less intact, and instead crammed every member capable of fighting into a single place?

Frowning at the mouldy wall, Draco shuddered at the idea of being surrounded by scores of invisible people, separated from him by a secret entrance or a magic barrier or maybe nothing at all. He could be standing next to Weasley’s dad washing his junk and neither would be able to tell.

As he grasped the hand of glory and stepped out of the building, heading in the direction opposite to the one he came from, Draco found it hard to stop his thoughts from coming back to the notion he was totally going to pull a blinder on this.

_Work now, think later_ , he reprimanded himself and continued to push through the darkness which was peppered with his soldiers and the people Weasley had thrown to them in order to provide Draco with enough cover and time.

There was Pansy, standing in the middle of the street, twirling her wand while Dean Thomas tottered around her, closer and closer to where Goyle was busy with his monkey job; Tracey Davis, casting the Trip Jinx at the fleeing Cho Chang who responded with the Impediment Jinx from the ground; Colin Creevey and Milicent Bulstrode, circling one another, unaware the other person was mere three feet away; Theodore Nott, dragging a tied and gagged Lavender Brown in a circle, at a loss as to where to go next; Neville Longbottom, langlocking Marcus Flint and getting away before Flint waved his wand.

As Draco stepped out of the artificial darkness some two hundred yards later, for a couple of seconds there was no escaping the cold-bloodedness with which Moody chose the setting.

The settlement behind him was wedged between two sparsely forested hills which met and merged at a sharp angle on one end—in a steep rise of stones and shrubbery he was now gawking at. There were measly twenty yards of empty space stretching between the last house and the rocky face. This made the village impossible to circle, and so the only place from which the Dark Lord’s army could attack was the one where Draco and his squad arrived earlier.

Despite the chill which seized him, Draco had to hand it to the Order—they knew how to pick their ambush spots.

Once Moody created enough chaos to catch the enemy’s attention, the Dark Lord’s army would have no option but to follow the escaping Order members through the booby-trapped village and towards the rocky slope. Meanwhile, Draco’d be lying in wait, watching for the best moment to strike and render scores of giants, Dementors, werewolves, Death Eaters, and underlings harmless. After it was done, the Order was to focus on those left standing while Draco, his squad, and anyone else lucky enough would make it to the other end of the settlement and Apparate to the chief base of operations.

Simple, really.

Weasley was staring in the wrong direction and didn’t notice Draco stumbling out of the smoke at first. Once he caught movement from the corner of his eye, he jumped and raised his wand.

Draco lifted two fingers.

Giving a curt nod of acknowledgement, Weasley pointed ahead and to Draco’s right. “The fourth one,” he said quietly. “We’ve emptied it last night.”

Draco nodded and turned to leave, but the swooshing sound of a wand being waved made him stop and whip around.

“Expecto Patronum!” Weasley hissed and a beam of silver light erupted from the tip of his wand, taking the shape of a small panting dog. Crouching down so that he was an inch from the animal’s muzzle, Weasley whispered, “Thirty seconds.”

As the Jack Russel Terrier wagged its tail and disappeared, Draco headed to the smoky wall and passed through one last time.

***

When Moody concluded another person needed to be involved in order for the plan to work, Draco to be protected, and his identity as a spy— indeed, the existence of a spy itself—to remain secret to everyone on both sides, Ron Weasley was an obvious candidate for the job. After all, he had been in on Draco’s defection from the beginning and newly fought in the ranks of the Order since Potter’s mission could apparently lick his arsehole now.

This arrangement didn’t make anyone piss glittery rainbows of joy but Granger definitely took it the hardest. While Draco was willing to grit his teeth and get it over with, seeing how Weasley had no reason to put his family in danger by trying to pull something stupid, and Weasley appeared fine with following Moody’s every word to a T if it meant he didn’t have to interact with Draco too much, Granger stonewalled and refused to attend any meeting where the ginger spindleshanks could be as much as whiffed, let alone seen.

When Draco asked her whether her boyfriend turned out to be so horrendous between the sheets she decided to avoid him for the rest of her life, she flushed red and shrieked how Ronald isn’t her boyfriend and this was very inappropriate, Malfoy, and what is it to you, anyway?

He never brought it up again.

***

Draco passed by a fidgety Longbottom who jerked whenever he heard the slightest noise, and made to cover the last few feet to the house pointed out to him.

Then he heard it.

“Pluviamenti!”

A gust of wet wind came up, snuffing out Draco’s candle. As fine drizzle materialised out of thin air, the thick blanket of smoke dispersed until it was gone and he saw the village once more, clear as a day.

Weasley stood in the square, adopting an offensive stance, his wand drawn and raised.

_“DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY, ATTACK!”_ he roared, and as he cast the Stinging Hex on the nearby Flint, the place resounded with the clamour of the Order scouts yelling curses and hexing the bollocks off of Draco’s surprised fighters.

Realising it’d be unwise to keep standing outside with his cock hanging out, Draco gathered his wits and barged into the building, a split second after Pansy shouted from way back for everybody to retreat. As he ran through the hallway and into the first room on the left while shoving the hand of glory inside his robes, the dark mark on his forearm flared up as if doused with boiling oil.

_Goyle has summoned the army. Right on the clock._

Suddenly, the village shook under the onslaught of shouting and hollering, and although Draco knew full well what was happening, he couldn’t resist flattening himself against the wall next to a closed window and taking a peek.

Out of the approximately fifty buildings in the settlement, droves of people were pouring, waving their wands and screaming bloody murder—Mad-Eye Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Dedalus Diggle, Emmeline Vance, Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin, Sturgis Podmore, Hestia Jones, Arthur Weasley, Bill Weasley, Fleur Weasley, Charlie Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Lisa Turpin, Penelope Clearwater, Aberforth Dumbledore, Augusta Longbottom, Roger Davies, Mandy Brocklehurst, Edward Tonks, Demelza Robins, Oliver Wood, Robert Hilliard, Marietta Edgecombe, Cormac McLaggen, and most of Dumbledore’s Army: Looney Lovegood, Lee Jordan, Katie Bell, Michael Corner, Padma Patil, Parvati Patil, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, Rionach O’Neal, Romilda Vane, Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ernie Macmillan, Terry Boot, Luca Caruso, Anthony Goldstein, and Alice Tolipan.

And that didn’t include those Draco knew by sight or not at all, parents, relatives, defected ministry officials, Aurors, and the scores of fighters Moody had recruited abroad, using his contacts across Europe and the USA.

Almost every member, ally, and sympathiser of the Order seemed to be there.

_“RUN!”_ Moody bellowed, and as the huge mass swelled and began moving towards the rocky hill, Draco jumped away from the window and knelt on the floor, his back to the door. Yanking the hood of his cape down to keep himself from sweating, he shoved his hand inside his pocket, fished out the final component, and started setting it up.

The three minutes on average for preparation would give the Order plenty of time to get out of the dodge and lead the Dark Lord’s army deep enough into the range for the device to be as effective as possible. After he was done, Draco planned to join the stream of rampaging Death Eaters so that those at the front would later confirm he was involved in the fighting. Then he’d dart outside the perimeter and wait for the best opportunity to cast the spell.

_Press the first button from the top to release the legs, enter the code, press the second button from the top to turn on the magnets, let the charms system take its sweet time waking u—_

“Step back, Malfoy!”


	3. Chapter 3

**2nd of April, 1999**

“You never get used to it, you know? They say it’s easier after your first one but it’s a crock of shit.”

He handed her the mock-up so that she could see he’d assembled it correctly.

“One’d think you would, that it’d become routine, and sometimes you do manage to convince yourself the voice in your head shut up, that you can do it and walk away, but then there’s this flash, a fraction of a second when you realise you’re just pep-talking yourself and have to, you know, actually _do_ it…”

She looked up from the toy and fixed him with a broody glare.

“Anyway, that’s the hardest part. Those two parts of you, pulling you in different directions. And you don’t want to, you want to stay put, but in the end you have to decide. Or it’s decided for you, I mean, whichever of the two. And it isn’t over, you know? It never goes away. You’re still reliving it, still weighing the options, still…”

“Still seeing them?”

He straightened up, meeting her knowing gaze.

_Of course; she’d know about being haunted by this stuff, wouldn’t she?_

She returned to inspecting the mock-up. “Dunno, Malfoy. Maybe it’s a good thing, these two parts fighting inside you. Maybe it’s a proof you’re there. That you remember this…” She made a broad gesture. “…isn’t how things are supposed to be. That this isn’t _normal_.”

He couldn’t help himself. “Then how can you be okay with _that_?” he said, pointing at the device.

Her eyebrows knitted together. “I’m not ‘ _okay’_ with it. I’ve simply accepted the necessity of it. And anyway, this is different.”

The concept of sneering had been invented precisely for these moments. “Why, because it’s the good guys doing it?”

She scowled at him. “No. Because the good guys have been pushed into this. Because we’re defending ourselves. Because there are times when the only two choices you have are either lie down and wait for the bad guys to get you, or strike first to save yourself. We haven’t created this situation, Malfoy, and while I may not like what it calls on us to do, I’ll be damned if I start moaning about some sort of moral equivalency.”

Frustrated, she ran a hand through her hair. “Look, I know it may not matter to the practical reality of this, that it won’t make things easier on you or me or anybody. I mean, it probably shouldn’t, anyway, and sure, there’s a line which shouldn’t be crossed, but context is important. It’s not the people doing a thing which makes it good or bad, it’s the reason why they’re doing it, the idea behind it. We’re having our backs against the wall, and at some point, we can’t afford the luxury of worrying about coming out of this squeaky clean.”

As she turned her attention to searching for a flaw in the apparatus, he couldn’t help feeling that despite her rationalisations, he was going to suffer yet another of his moments.


	4. Chapter 4

**7th of April, 1999**

Draco froze, rooted to the spot. The outside world which had been roaring like a thunder of dragons seemed to have gone dead quiet as soon as the voice spoke up. For a moment there was nothing but the cold glass beneath his sweating hands, the dusty floorboards pressing into his knees, the sense of a foreign presence in the room.

_Dammit, dammit, Merlin’s prolapsed arsehole dammit!_

Three months of working miracles in coordination, manipulating entire troops of the Dark Lord’s army to do his bidding, learning to juggle discoveries which would one day revolutionise the wizarding world, or having to deal with fucking Weasley of all people, yet it was going to be ruined by an overactive twat trying to play the hero.

And to top it off, if the ex-duel-incompetent, weight-challenged Squib felt confident enough to announce his arrival, then there was no way he wasn’t aiming his wand at Draco’s back.

Under normal circumstances, outfighting him would have been a challenge due to the improvements he’d made as the leader of Dumbledore’s Army. But doing it while kneeling, wand tucked in the inside pocket of one’s cloak, with one’s back turned?

Yeah, Draco could just as well kiss his chances goodbye.

Throat dry, he swallowed heavily. “Longbottom, list—”

“Get up and step back, Malfoy,” the voice cut him off, bearing no resemblance to the squeaking he used to mock in school. “I’m not going to repeat it.”

_Shit, shit, shit._ There was no time for this since the schedule Draco was operating on was pretty tight and getting tighter by the second. He had to get Longbottom off his case, and he had to do it fast while not getting his arse torn in two if possible.

He gulped. “This isn’t what it looks li—”

A silver-blue beam hit the floor, singing the hem of his cloak and making him jerk in alarm. “Alright, alright, I’m standing up!” Draco exclaimed, raising his hands. “Merlin, calm down!”

He swung onto his haunches and moved to stand up when it occurred to him what was going on. He stopped mid-movement, relief flooding him like bath water as he saw a way out.

Longbottom could have disarmed, bound, stunned, or outright killed him many times over if he wanted to. There was no need to sneak up on Draco only to blow the moment of surprise by making threats.

And yet here he was, stumbling in and alerting the enemy like a snot-nosed amateur.

Which meant Longbottom, as much as Draco wanted to view him as a gormless dimwit, didn’t wish to disarm, bind, stun, or kill him. And considering the circumstances, there was only one reason why he’d hesitate to do any of those things.

Draco laid a hand on the component and shuffled around to see Longbottom’s face. “You know what?” he smirked. “Actually I don’t think I will be getting up. It’s pretty comfortable down here and I’m nowhere near finished.”

Longbottom scowled and his wand twitched. “I’m not playing, Malfoy,” he snarled. “Do as I said, or the next spell is going to hit you between the eyes.”

Hoping he hadn’t made a horrible miscalculation, Draco bet on his card. “Go on,” he said. “Do it.”

A trickle of sweat ran down between his shoulder blades as he stared his latest mishap down. Everything hinged on Longbottom continuing to worry about what Draco had been doing, and doubting whether he could do away with him without exposing his own side to danger. As long as he remained uncertain and cautious about the level of risk he’d be undertaking, there was a possibility for Draco to either talk to him, or eliminate him as a threat entirely.

If Longbottom decided to chance it, though...

They bored their eyes into each other, as if forced to do so by an invisible link connecting them. As the noise of the Order members running and yelling and screaming and bellowing and shrieking counter-spells started to intermingle with the nearer and nearer sounds of the pursuing army, Draco continued to stare at Longbottom’s sweating face, willing him to blink and give up, locked with him in a capsule where everything but their stand-off was utterly irrelevant.

He counted ten seconds, twenty, half a minute.

Longbottom’s wand remained pointed at him, but nothing happened.

Draco’s shoulders sagged in relief as it became clear Longbottom wasn’t going to push this beyond forcing him to stay in place. He raised one hand in a gesture of appeasement, keeping the other one placed on the device.

“As I was saying,” he remarked. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

Longbottom gave a derisive chuckle. “Well, Malfoy, to me it looks like we both have time to kill,” he said, not lowering his wand. “You’re not standing up and I’m not letting you go, so I suppose we’ll stay and wait to see how the battle turns out. I wonder which side ends up benefitting from you not getting to do whatever it is you were doing.”

Draco reminded himself what a bad idea it’d be to panic. “Mine, actually,” he said with laboured carelessness, struggling not to let it show how much the passing seconds were gnawing at him. By his estimation, he was at least five minutes behind the schedule and could swear the stomping of the approaching giants was getting louder. “I’m trying to help you.”

Longbottom snorted. “Seriously, Malfoy? Do you think I’m a complete idiot?”

_Good, an emotional response is good. Anger, confusion, fear, whatever it takes, just get him to act sloppy and make a mistake._

“Well, yeah,” Draco exclaimed in a tone of friendly benevolence, as if speaking to a dim-witted child. “But I’m not going to hold it against you, seeing how you have no idea your side is about to be wiped out thanks to this stunt of yours.”

Longbottom gritted his teeth, but otherwise his only response was to tighten the grip on the wand.

Struggling to pay no mind to the chill in the increasingly dark room, Draco continued to search for a way to make Longbottom lose his cool. “I’m sure you think what a show of bravery this is, but if I needed confirming what a bunch of blithering morons you Gryffindors are, this would definitely convince me.”

Adopting a conversational tone, he watched Longbottom’s features become shrouded in darkness and difficult to read. “As long as we’re chatting, any particular reason why that red-headed dipshit is the one in charge while you’re shuffling your feet in the rear? I do remember thinking you weren’t half-bad at managing the most pathetic fan club in existence, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe the others figured out what you and I have known all along. Maybe they decided even a wanker who has trouble keeping his own wand in check can do a better job than you.”

Aware of the huge strides he’d taken in coming out of his shell, Draco wagered Longbottom had to be a bit miffed about having been forced to pack up and stop being one of the few in the Order who were generally in the know, with no explanation as to why Moody suddenly found him as useful as a chocolate teapot.

“Or did you have the good sense to step down as soon as he arrived, so that they wouldn’t have to throw you out?”

His breath was coming in little puffs as he went on, shouting to howl down the stampede outside.

“I bet that’s it, isn’t it? The Wonder Boy’s makeweight makes a show, and you can’t wait to give up what you’ve earned and run around him like a good pup. Anything to be popular, huh? Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

A stomp resounded in the distance, followed by a high-pitched scream which made the hairs on Draco’s nape stand on end.

_Merlin, that couldn’t have been further than what, a couple of buildings up at most?_ he realised with mounting horror as he watched Longbottom flinch but never let his eyes off him.

Draco pointed a hand in the direction from which the noise came. “What if a friend of yours got flattened into a pancake because you’ve decided to meddle with something way beyond your understanding?” he said. “Perhaps it was Looney. Or Weaselette. Or maybe—”

“Save your breath, Malfoy,” Longbottom cut in. “You’re not going to distract me and I’m not falling for the emotional act _again_.” Seeing Draco’s bafflement at the heated response, he added, “Ron told me about that treasure hunt you had me send him on. Lying in wait for Harry, Hermione, and him? Nice.” He pulled a strained smile but the faux appreciation didn’t mask the anger in his eyes. “How daft of me to think even a git of your calibre could be afraid enough to stop plotting against others.”

Of all the indiscretions and humiliations Draco had caused over the years, he never thought tricking people into acting on their compassion would be the one coming to bite him over and over. He put on quite a show last autumn to invoke Longbottom’s pity, playing into his coward’s image like no tomorrow, choking up to make the idea of a Death Eater bartering with one of the Dark Lord’s secrets convincing. Of course, viewing the whole affair with Longbottom’s eyes, what Draco had done was use him to try and hurt those he cared about, something no loyal soul could let go unpunished.

And if there was one quality he didn’t deny Longbottom having, it was that he knew where he stood and why.

“I didn’t mean anything bad by it,” Draco shrugged.

“Yeah, I’m sure you had the noblest intentions.”

“You have no clue.” Draco was crouching with his back to the window, and so it was difficult for him to gauge how far along the fighting was. All he had to go on was the ratio of stamping feet and shouted curses, and since he’d pretty much compiled a textbook out of the combat spells reaching his ears, there wasn’t a minute to waste. “I was trying to help them. And I’m trying to help _you_.”

“Oh spare me, _please_!” Longbottom exclaimed, the loathing in his voice unmistakable. “When have you ever tried to help us? When you cosied up to Umbridge? When you threw your lot with You-Know-Who? When you looked the other way as the Carrows brutalised those who opposed them? When they snatched us left and right? When I and half the class had to go into hiding in the Room of Requirement? At any point since you took up the job of killing people who didn’t do anything wrong?”

Longbottom gripped the wand so tightly his knuckles turned white, and for a second, just a second, Draco believed he’d actually snap, suspicious device in the room or not.

“Tell me, Malfoy, isn’t it strange how you only discover your helpful side whenever you’re caught with your trousers down?” He pinned Draco with a glare which couldn’t drip more revulsion. “All you’ve ever done is brownnose to any tyrant who could get you what you wanted, no matter how much it hurt others. So stop getting on my nerves and keep your mouth shut,” he said with the gravity of the Chief Warlock sentencing a criminal to life in Azkaban.

And that was it. As Longbottom fell silent, Draco was left with a gnawing realisation that his toolbox of manipulation and lies proved woefully inadequate when it came to worming his way into the head of someone this self-righteously pissed.

“Longbottom, listen to me,” he implored in earnest, dropping the cocksure façade without intending to. “I’m serious. Get over your stupid grudges for one moment and _listen_ to what I’m saying.” _Please, please,_ please _, get it somehow._ “You don’t have the slightest inkling of an idea what’s going on, and if you don’t let me go now, right now, something horrible is going to happen.”

“Shut up,” Longbottom grumbled.

“You either let me go, or today you lose the w—“

Draco heard a bang behind him and turned around, grasping the device with his sweaty hand. From his position on the floor, he saw only a piece of black fabric sliding down the window pane, but it was clear what was happening.

If _they_ were out there, it might occur to them to peek through the window. Even if they didn’t or failed to notice him and Longbottom inside, they could storm the house. And if they decided to do that, the mission would be toast and he himself with it.

Every risk he’d undertaken, everything he’d sacrificed would be in vain.

He looked at Longbottom, at his wit’s end. “For fuck’s sake, you idiot,” Draco pleaded. “I’m in the Order.”

And that was when his ears exploded with the sound of breaking, shattering, and smashing as something huge crashed through the roof and landed on the storey above them, making the house _shake_ under the onslaught. Before Draco’s senses managed to process the pained creaking which followed a split second later, he heard a loud burst and felt something small and sharp shower down on his head, cutting into the skin of his scalp and sending wet trickles through the strands of his hair.

It was as if someone switched on the Wizarding Wireless Network, except with less Celestina Warbeck and more screaming as a barrage of thuds flooded the room, some of them hard, others disgustingly squishy.

Not even Longbottom could ignore such a thunderous racket. He jolted to avoid the hail of flying glass and glanced up at the ceiling, forgetting about his hostage for a fraction of a second.

The one brief moment of inattention was all Draco needed. Quick as a snake, he reached inside his cloak and ripped out his wand.

“Petrificus Totalus!” he yelled, and the next thing he knew, Longbottom froze in his position, a baffled expression etched on his features.

Draco didn’t watch the wanker fall to the ground; the bang of his body hitting the floor was enough of a confirmation he didn’t have to worry about him any longer. Instead, he whipped around and concentrated on the neglected apparatus, trying to quench his panic.

_Shit, shit, shit, this is so fucked, everything is fucked, why couldn’t have it been Creevey or Thomas or any other idiot being the idiot of the day, those would have been so much easier to handle, why did there have to an idiot in the first place, damn, focus Draco, bloody focus, where exactly were you with this, have you switched it on already or not, fuck, fuck, fuck…_

He ran his hand through his hair and immediately yanked it out when splinters and shards of glass buried themselves into the flesh. Struggling not to think about how late he was and how much time still remained until the tool would be anywhere near completion, Draco pushed buttons and connected wires with his bleeding fingers, determined to ignore the stomach-churning noise of what definitely was a mass fight to the death happening outside.

Finally— _bloody finally!_ —the cylinder turned green after excruciating two minutes and the antenna went up with a loud ding-a-link.

Draco was certain he hadn’t heard a more beautiful sound in his life.

As the component’s Acceleration Charm kicked in and started producing the magic to be released into the settlement within ten minutes, Draco wiped the sweat off his forehead and pressed himself against the wall.

The trumping of the Dark Lord’s army tearing through the village had stopped once Death Eaters encountered resistance, and as Draco shimmied towards the hole where a window used to be, his vision filled up with a black tangle of bodies, surging and jerking and ducking and falling.

The Order member nearest to the house jolted and jumped to the side to avoid getting hit with a curse, revealing a mangled body lying in the near distance.

Draco flinched on instinct.

As the blond man turned his back to the house and adopted an offensive stance to repay the enemy in kind, Draco spotted his chance. He’d duck behind him in order not to be recognised too soon, and weave his way through the surrounding fighters who were surely too busy to notice him spring out of nowhere in the middle of the battlefield.

He darted to the door, as if already propelled by the expanding pressure. Leaping over the motionless sack of shit known as Neville Longbottom, he sprinted out of the room and into the hallway leading to the exit.

He almost crashed into them.

Whenever he later reflected on it, he didn’t see what came next as it happened, only as a series of images forever burned in his memory.

The Death Eater by the main entrance, facing him, glancing up as Draco burst into the corridor.

The blond man from before, a few feet away from Draco, wand erupting with the fire of the Blasting Curse and holding the Death Eater suspended in the air.

The same blond man morphing into Anthony Goldstein as he looked away from the cleared doorway, eyes wide in surprise when they landed on Draco.

Goldstein’s body, crumpled on the floor after Draco’s Killing Curse struck.

Draco stopped dead in his tracks.

Air left his lungs as if punched out of him and the screaming in his ears died down, like he dunked his head under water.

_Fuck._

His vision went grainy and he felt himself leave his body, float up to the ceiling, and watch himself gawp in mute horror at the corpse he’d created.

Had he talked to Goldstein, ever? He remembered trying to press-gang a straw-haired Ravenclaw into buying a Potter Stinks badge, and there was that fight during a first year Quidditch match, and of course, Slytherin and Ravenclaw took History of Magic together. But there was no distinct memory of the person he sent to the great beyond, and so really, no reason to be shocked by taking the life of someone whose existence he’d barely acknowledged.

_How did it end up like this?_ Draco thought as he stared at an ashen face he wasn’t sure belonged to Goldstein. _What the fuck am I doing?_

But he knew. He was doing exactly what he was supposed to do, what he had chosen to do, over and over. There was a goal to achieve, one which required him to shut the murmur of his conscience down, to steamroll through Goldstein and Crabbe and Longbottom and whichever other sod was dumb enough to cross his path.

If this was how it had to be, so be it.

_How many before this is over? And will I give a damn once it is?_

But this was what one did when they didn’t have a choice, damns given or not. And he was going to do it once more, not ten minutes from now, and again and again, both for the Dark Lord and the Order. He’d kill as many times as necessary if that was what would help his family survive.

And he was getting quite good at it, wasn’t he? Three months ago, the mere idea of killing sent him puking his guts out, never mind actually doing it. But look at him now! This one came as easy to him as breathing.

_Like it would have to any other Death Eater._

As soon as the thought entered his mind, he was slammed into his body and just like that, the path which had seemed so clear floated away, as unreachable and distant as a forgotten dream.

If he believed he didn’t have a choice a moment ago, now there truly remained only one way forward.

“Honestly,” Draco said as he stepped away from the corpse and looked at his wristwatch. “Fuck my life.”

He stormed down the hallway and into the room he left a minute earlier, doing his best to pay no mind to the strained groaning of the beams which was growing ever more tortured. Marching over to where Longbottom was lying, stiff and with bulging eyes boring into the ceiling, Draco bent down and seized a fistful of the tosser’s shirt.

“I hope you’re fucking happy with yourself,” he snarled.

It would have been one thing if he could grab Longbottom, Apparate his bothersome arse somewhere safe, and return to complete the mission—fast, easy on the joints, not a bit dangerous. Unfortunately, Moody’s part in the plan involved placing an anti-apparition line around the village as soon as the Dark Lord’s army arrived which made a retreat of the soon-to-be shocked Death Eaters or any multi-spatial heroics of certain tardy spies out of the question. And Draco definitely didn’t intend to rennervate Longbottom and risk he’d use his restored mobility to attack him or leave him knocked out next to a devil’s machine a couple of minutes from going off.

Which gave Draco no other option but to grit his teeth, wrap his injured fingers around his wand, and levitate Longbottom out of the room as he was—the size of a baby troll, difficult to manipulate, and conspicuous as shit.

Throwing a glance at the main entrance to make sure everyone on the battlefield was too occupied to follow Goldstein inside, Draco waved his wand angrily and let the body float down the hallway, away from the furore outside. If Longbottom suffered a few extra bumps, that was no skin off Draco’s back.

The fucker would live, which was more than anyone had a right to expect.

There was a door at the end of the corridor, and Draco swung his wand arm for Longbottom to shoot forward and smash it open, feet first. Following the bugger inside, he found a window which faced the exact direction he needed—the steep forested hills around the village.

One last furious flick of the wrist and Longbottom’s body darted through the window, crashing into the dead undergrowth some twenty feet away.

Draco peeked outside, upwards to his left—the Dark Lord’s soldiers were streaming through the gaps between the houses, either to reach the Order faster or to get away from whatever was making those nauseating stomps in the village square. But no one was looking in his direction or noticed a body literally shoot out of a building nearby.

Draco knocked down the shards of broken glass with his elbow, climbed onto the sill, and after a moment’s hesitation followed after Longbottom. By his estimation, he had about seven minutes before the apparatus would engage. And while it was enough for him to return to the original plan of Maybe It’d Be Nice If Someone Actually Saw Me Fight, the idea of encountering another complication and getting caught in the crossfire didn’t exactly make him feel warm and fuzzy.

When the clamping of feet to his right came and then a brutal shove which sent him falling face first on the ground, he was annoyed by his lack of surprise.

Of course this went tits-up as well.

Immediately, he was grabbed by his collar, lifted a bit, and kicked straight in the tailbone so that he’d stumble deeper into the thin grove and fall again, groaning but safely out of view.

Not a moment too soon, judging by the thunderous sea of black which started to trickle beneath the forest line.

_“WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU PLAYING AT?!”_ a voice behind him boomed, as exasperating in its self-righteous indignation as in its usual bewilderment.

Pressing the healthy hand into the wet leaves below him, Draco pushed himself to his knees and took in the ginger towering above. “Came to pick up your monkey, Weasley?” he said, the taste of blood metallic and tangy in his mouth.

There was a half a second’s pause before the pest went on, making Draco doubt he’d heard him.

_“WHY DIDN’T YOU SET IT OFF?”_ Ron Weasley shouted, the trail he’d blazed in the grass by the row of houses wide behind him. _“THEY’RE MOWING US DOWN LIKE PIECES ON A DAMN CHESSBOARD!”_

Before Draco decided whether to go with a simple “fuck off”, or if “blow me, twat” was a more accurate expression of the rage which roared inside him, Weasley covered the last yard separating them, snatched him by the sleeve of his cloak, and yanked him deeper into the grove, pushing him against a tree.

“Your mates are pouring outside the perimeter, Malfoy!” he growled, sweat beading on his forehead. “We’re clinched by the rock-face like in a damn vice! Moody’s leading our own fighters in to keep you freaks in check, and is that Neville?” he sputtered, noticing Longbottom’s petrified body a couple of feet away.

Draco moved to tear his hands off himself, but Weasley was already marching over to where his bleeding pal lay.

“Yeah, it is,” Draco confirmed, making a show of sweeping non-existent filth off his shoulders until he realised there was nobody watching. “Do me a favour and the next time I have the misfortune of working with you, _KEEP YOUR GOONS UNDER FUCKING CONTROL_!” he yelled, causing Weasley to whip around. “Your mate decided to show me how tough he was, right when I started to prepare the damn crap. Held me up so long someone came inside the house. Someone I had to _get rid of_. So by all means, continue laying into me and wasting precious time, but first I expect some damn gratitude for not letting him get squashed like the cockroach he is!”

Weasley turned red and breathed in through his nostrils. “I had to bring ‘my goons’ out without telling them bugger all, you arse!” he gritted through clenched teeth. “Like hell they knew what they were supposed to do and why. Everyone had been cooped up in their base for the past three months, not allowed to leave unless Moody gave the okay. Sod it, most had no idea there was going to be a battle until an hour ago. No one can tell anyone about anything anymore, not even that they might be marching off to die. And do you know why? Because Moody values your worthless skin enough to protect you from getting ratted out!”

Draco must have done a poor job of concealing his shock because Weasley gave a smug smile before jabbing a finger at him. “That’s right, Malfoy. You’re not the only one who jumped ship. We have one of your sort in our camp as well, which is why we’ve been dealing with a leak the size of the giant squid!” He gestured to the body behind him. “So if you believe I’m going to thank you for not murdering my _friend_ who got caught up in a poxy arrangement made entirely for your benefit, you’re out of your bloody mind!”

Draco watched Weasley return to Longbottom and put a Concealment Charm on him, mumbling what Draco could only intuit was an apology due to the ear-splitting noise surrounding them. “Whatever,” he said, not thinking it wise to mention he in fact _did_ murder a bloke who might very well have been Weasley’s friend. “Just make sure to Obliviate him while you’re at it.”

Affronted, Weasley stepped away. “No, Malfoy, I’m not going to Obliviate him!”

“He knows!”

“Then you should have been more careful, shouldn’t you?”

“If there’s someone on your side leaking intel, then I want as few people to know about me as po—”

In his irritation, Draco didn’t notice Weasley rushing to him before he was once again seized by the front of his shirt. “Get bloody going, Malfoy,” Weasley said. “You might not give a toss but those out there are good people fighting and risking their lives for something greater than themselves. And if anyone dies who didn’t have to, I’m going to make damn sure you pay for it.”

Weasley shoved Draco in the chest and sent him stumbling up the hill. “Don’t detonate it until we’re in the clear, got it?” he said, turning to weave his way back down to the rock-face.

“You have five minutes, tops,” Draco yelled after him. “After that, we can have a collective wank over our pristine morals for the good it’s going to do,” he muttered before casting a Severing Charm on the shrubs, creating a clear path for himself and setting off up the hill to make the most out of the last vestiges of time when he could claim to be at least a bit in charge of the whole disaster.

A thin branch slashed his cheek open as he jumped over a fallen tree trunk and began climbing the unforgiving slope, out of breath and wheezing after about ten yards, but still going, grabbing onto the roots grown into the ground to push himself up, fingers pressing into the dirt, the arches of his feet straining. He was aiming for a small clearing in the distance, high enough in the steep rise for him to see what the hell was going on down below where the clamour of screams, curses, and crumbling brickwork imbued every molecule of air.

Only the seconds ticking in his mind drowned the noise out.

He counted exactly thirty of them before deciding that whatever was visible in his current elevation had to be enough. Setting his eyes on the nearest tree in front of him, he seized the trunk with both arms and used his momentum to spin himself around, seeing what was happening on the battlefield for the very first time.

If the frantic scramble up the hill hadn’t taken his breath away, what he saw most definitely would have.

The sky was dark with Dementors, swirling above the village and swooping down among the fighters, feasting on the excitement and fear, not making a distinction between who was an ally and who an enemy. Their onslaught trapped one of the giants the Dark Lord’s army brought along right in the middle of the fighting, afraid and confused by the commotion raving around him, seconds away from legging it through the crowd.

The other one, the _only_ other one of the whole tribe who showed signs of life and hadn’t done a runner, roared in frustrated anger and began tearing down the building closest to him, near the rock-face and opposite Draco’s hill, hurling chunks of bricks, roof tiles, and stones at anyone who had the misfortune of finding themselves within reach.

Not that one needed to be in the vicinity or have an extraordinarily shitty luck to find themselves with a face full of debris; because what used to be a derelict, but solid dump of a settlement became piles upon piles of burning rubble in a blink of an eye.

In the remnants of the roof which used to cover the last building Draco had entered, a giant was lying motionless with his feet planted on the ground, one arm thrown over what may have been a chimney once, likely moments away from collapsing with the entire structure. The other houses were missing a roof here, a wall there, or crashing outright in clouds of dust and flames, the fire fanned by the rags of the flying Dementors, the blanket of smoke cut into ribbons by all colours of the rainbow as hexes and curses were being cast in every direction.

But the worst part was the people.

In a surprising act of self-control for his usual self, Weasley had put the situation mildly when he compared the battlefield to a cluttered chessboard.

Were he in his position, Draco would have called it a fucking meat mincer.

The village was about a half of a Quidditch pitch in length and maybe, _maybe_ twice the width of Diagon Alley, yet somehow two armies of several hundreds of soldiers crammed themselves into it. But that was the only part of Moody’s plan to create a morning of controlled chaos which remained recognisable.

Instead of being spread out by the rock-face to Draco’s left, in the relative safety of collective defence, a good part of the Order was pushed behind the borderline and deep into the village square, in some areas having switched places with the Dark Lord’s army which was sprawling _everywhere_ ; in the mouth to the settlement where ground was busted open with large footprints, in the narrow alleyways between the houses, among the trees, even by the rock-face where one flank ambushed the Order from the side and left it with no other choice but to retreat either towards the hill opposite Draco, or deeper into the battlefield, pushing, shoving, and falling all the while.

As the Death Eaters took the spot of the escaping Order members, Moody’s commando of about twenty members Weasley had mentioned found itself surrounded, tripping over rubble and dead bodies as they did their best to avoid the barrage of hexes hurtling towards them.

Unwittingly, Draco hugged the tree he was holding on and watched the witches and wizards down in the valley assault, curse, and murder one another.

Somewhere down there, there was Barnaby Scabior who loved baked beans and couldn’t draw up a workable strategy to save his life; Amelia Fernsby, the tough-as-nails replacement determined not to end up like her predecessor; Freya Danksworth, fidgety from too much caffeine and too little sleep as she expected her unit to be summoned at any moment; Blaise Zabini with his sleek manners and a myriad of ways to tell others to piss off; Ailsa Kneen who set herself apart from Draco’s cooing aunties by giving him his first potions kit; the self-assured blond who enlisted a week ago and whose name he couldn’t for the life of him recall.

Those down there were moving, living, breathing people, some he liked, others he loathed, some he knew, others he’d never spoken a single word to, but all a wand’s flicker away from death at his hands.

And among them…

A flash of white shot forward and Draco drew a sharp breath as he watched his father, cape down and hair whipping in the wind, take advantage of a narrow path which opened in the crowd, run a few yards from the middle of the square toward the division line, and cast the Blasting Curse on Mad-Eye Moody, close to the house with the giant collapsed on top of it, but still inside the death trap his own son had set up.

Moody stumbled when the spell smashed into his hastily conjured shield, and as Lucius Malfoy gained ground and advanced forward, Draco forgot all about time, all about the people, all about the sides of the war which appeared so nonsensical from up there, even about the war itself; he forgot to care about anything other than the few feet keeping his father from escaping certain doom.

_Not him. The Order can have everyone but him._

A blast resounded in the near distance, followed by terrible screaming and a rain of thuds which drowned out every single one of those shrieks. Draco tore himself away from watching his father inch to life, and looked up to see what had happened.

Where the giant had been pulling apart a building a moment ago, there was now a patch of clear space. The walls, the roof, the windows—everything had been ripped from the foundations by a gargantuan force and propelled forward in a pile, crashing by the rock-face and onto the advancing soldiers, creating a barrier between the survivors and the last escapees to the forest. A huge purple head was sticking out of an ever larger pool of red seeping from underneath the debris, making it seem it was this pool which drove the black-clad attackers back, not the several tonnes worth of bricks, tiles, and meat that had shot up and crushed their fellow fighters to a pulp.

Seeing his comrade lie there motionless, the last giant gave a roar of abject horror and set off towards the open side of the settlement, flinging his arms and trampling on anyone who didn’t step away. Those who did break formation and hurtled aside, Order members and Death Eaters alike, found themselves scattered amongst their enemies like a bunch of motley marbles.

Draco glanced at the hill opposite, in the direction from which the spell came. Above the line of houses, the section of the Order with the good sense to run from Death Eaters was crawling up between the sparse trees like a swarm of spiders.

And all the way down, above the opening where the demolished building used to be, a man with flaming red hair was standing with his legs apart, wand at the ready.

The moment Draco realised who the person was, Weasley waved his arm.

A red-headed girl who had been fighting in Moody’s group, completely encircled and with no way out, rose in the air and her body darted toward the grove, hurtling backwards through the crowd of Death Eaters by the hood of her sweatshirt, knocking them down as if she’d been fired from a cannon. Another person lifted up immediately after her and then another as Weasley kept casting the Summoning Charm on as many fighters as he could locate, but a hex hit the third body mid-flight when someone from the Dark Lord’s army got the presence of mind to understand what the hell was going on.

The struck Order member fell into the heaving sea of black but Draco paid no attention to what came next. Instead, his eyes roved to where his father kept pummelling Mad-Eye Moody with one spell after another, moving ahead one step at a time.

If Weasley resorted to such desperate measures to rescue his family and friends, then Lucius Malfoy had seconds left to live.

The dance Moody was doing was the most rapid sequence of defence moves Draco had ever seen strung together. It was nothing short of miraculous that after having been however long at this, the aging Auror could tell who was going to attack, when, from where, and with what. But devoting his attention to deciding whether to pull up a shield, ricochet an offensive spell, or jump aside to avoid a Killing Curse left him with no time to launch a proper counter-attack. It was obvious he’d have to retreat, but there was nowhere for him to retreat _to_ ; all he could do was keep renewing his shield and dodge the increasing numbers of lethal spells as others noticed what Lucius Malfoy was doing and joined in.

A movement caught Draco’s eye; a blur of skirts and wild nest of black hair bolted deep from within the square, streaked around the attackers’ backs, and took a spot well in the safety zone, at the upper end of the semi-circle which formed around their victim.

Distracted for a second, Moody turned to face the newest threat, prepared to fend off whatever Bellatrix Lestrange intended to smash him with.

And by doing so, he allowed Lucius Malfoy to make the last crucial step over the death line and swing his arm in the motion everyone on the battlefield knew so well.

Draco raised his wand in the exact same moment the green ray hit Mad-Eye Moody between the shoulder blades.

He wasn’t sure if he actually uttered the spell or if time ran out. But as the body of the Order’s leader slumped to the ground, Draco was gripped by a feeling the air in the valley stilled and stopped moving, like on those distant summer days of his childhood before a storm hit, when the countryside around the manor turned into a simmering cauldron, ready to blow the lid off. The settlement which had been a cacophony of yelling and screaming and clanging and crashing fell silent, all sound muffled as if a huge fuzzy blanket had been thrown over the village. The people slowed down, seemingly fighting through an ocean of honey, and as he watched the two armies freeze in a tableau of violence and death, a peculiar fear seized Draco, a wish to yell and trash and call attention to himself, anything to stop whatever was coming for them. But when he tried to open his mouth, he realised he couldn’t move and he couldn’t breathe.

A sound of sucking punctured the stupefying calm as if a vortex opened in the village square, followed by a gust of wind which came swooshing from down below, propelled by something unseen, a gigantic rubber expanding band until it smashed into the limits of the perimeter.

A hollow _BOOM_ popped Draco’s ears and his vision filled up with an impenetrable wall of colour, shooting up towards the sky in thousands of thick uniform beams and covering everything which made up the valley, clutching it in its embrace.

Draco stood transfixed, powerless to look away from the sea of all-consuming, blinding, emerald green.

It passed as quickly as it began. One moment, the world was gone, submerged in what he’d always assumed the Great Lake was like under the surface, and the next it returned as if nothing had happened. He remained as he was, tears streaming from unblinking eyes.

The valley was dead silent. No one used the opportunity to shout a curse, not a single person shuffled their feet, not one bird chirped anywhere. But after a while, the air rippled as the survivors took a collective gasp, and the screams came.

Draco forced himself to breathe and focus on the settlement.

The lines plunging through the village couldn’t have been straighter if he’d drawn them with a ruler. In the middle of the opposite row, a large wedge had been ripped from the first booby-trapped building, revealing a part of the hallway and the main room. In the row below him, the vertex to his left was marked with the mutilated remains of the collapsed giant, and connected with the final point by the third side which cut the houses in half, stopping abruptly near the opening to the settlement. Even the ground seemed sunken where the magic rampaged and did its work.

And most importantly, there was nobody and nothing inside the triangle—no Death Eater, no one from the Order of the Phoenix, not a single corpse, not a drop of blood, not one of the Dementors which had been sweeping above that part of the village.

It was as if some force had swooped down from above and snatched itself a piece of the war, like a big chunk of cake cut with frightening precision.

Glancing away from the patch of empty space and at the crowd surrounding it, Draco was struck by the impression that he wasn’t looking at the armies of two opposing forces, hell-bent on destroying each other. For a moment, they were ordinary people, united in terror and stepping away from what they couldn’t comprehend, none of them able to explain what had occurred.

None but two.

Through the shroud of his stupor, Draco became aware of a voice shouting for everyone to Disapparate. Lifting his head, he saw the escapees on the opposite hill vanish, one loud pop after another. The surviving Order members down in the square soon followed suit, leaving their dead leader behind.

But Draco was drawn to a particular person in the thinning crowd.

As if feeling his gaze on him, Weasley looked up and stared into the forest, locking eyes before he too disappeared.


	5. Chapter 5

**6th of April, 1999**

“So it’s supposed to be you, Greg, Millie, Theo, Blaise, Marcus, and I, marching into the middle of who knows where, with the Order doing who knows what, of course on top of being fortified on their home turf and sipping hot chocolate while we blunder around with no clue about anything whatsoever.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Why don’t I like this, Draco?”

“That’s not how I’d pu—”

“Yeah, I know how you put it. Excuse me if I’m less than impressed by the idea of having to go well beyond my duty with no benefits to be seen.” She turned away. “Tell Scabior and Dankworth to pick somebody else.”

“Neither of them did the picking. I did.”

Arms still folded, she dug the tip of her boot into the rotten floorboard. “Then I’m telling you. I don’t like it. Find someone else.”

“Pans, think of the opport—“

“You finish the sentence, Draco Malfoy, and I’m going to hex you back to Hogwarts,” she snapped, her mask of polite disinterest slipping. “What kind of opportunity can _you_ give to _me_? Can you make Dankworth stop acting as if having me in her troop is a sign of doom? Can you get me out of this dump? Can you at least stop the constant stream of humiliations?”

She clenched her fists. “Do you know what they have me do, Draco? It’s either kitchen duty, or a guaranteed spot on the front line, depending on whether Dankworth decided to shunt me, or get rid of me. I’m better than this. I can _do_ better than this. But I can’t really, can I, because it doesn’t matter if I’m fast, if I have a tactical bone in my body, or that _I_ actually dumped _you_. It matters only that I used to date the resident pariah who fell out of the Dark Lord’s favour, if he ever had it in the first place. And boy, does this carry weight among these people.”

She looked aside, sadness creeping into her voice. “You’re untouchable, Draco. Stop dragging me down with you and go away.”

Pushing down the hurt and resentment swelling inside him, he continued quietly, as if she hadn’t said anything. “It’s simple. We go in, get a feel of the situation, bash up some goons, fall back, call the army. Done.”

She shook her head. “It’s the same scum job as always. You’re just too blind to see it.”

He took a step forward. “Tell me, is there anywhere lower you can go? Because I can. This isn’t another job, Pans, it’s an opportunity. I did something which deserved a reward, and I got it, with no objections from anybody. This wallowing at the bottom we’ve been doing? It’s over. I’ve earned something good for myself, a position of trust and responsibility, something which has a real potential to get me places. And I want to share it with you, as small as it may seem. So please, don’t throw me out on my arse when I can actually help you.”

Her face contorted in pity, and he decided this was the time to move in for the kill. “And hey, you wouldn’t be just any other foot soldier, blindly following orders. You’d be my second mate. I need you in this position, Pans, there’s no one I’d trust more with it. I need to know that if the mission does go haywire, I’ll have someone reliable to fall back on who’ll get everyone to safety.”

This sealed the deal. Assured she’d be allowed to bolt and take the rest with her just when Draco needed her to do precisely that, she sighed and came closer to hug him. “Well, it’s not the old ‘shut up, Parkinson, do as I said, Parkinson’ I’ve been treated to lately, I’ll say as much.”

He wrapped his arms around her, aware this marked the last few hours when any of them were at least willing to talk to him. “Don’t mention it. What are friends for if not for looking out after each other?”


	6. Chapter 6

**7th of April, 1999**

It’d been an hour and his knees were killing him; dear great-grandfather Lampus clearly didn’t have the comfort of the Malfoy house elves in mind when he charmed the floor so that any carpet or rug would instantly go up in flames when placed on it.

All things considered, though, and taking into account the exact nature of the creature whose body was making those sweeping sounds on the black oak boards, the aesthetic preferences of his ancestors or the state of his anatomy were the least of Draco’s problems.

“I… I… there’s no good way for me to describe it, my lord,” Scabior stuttered. “It’s like the others said. One moment I was in the thick of it, almost got hit by a piece of a tile flying straight at me, and the next, when I managed to knock Podmore down, it was like somebody cast the Freezing Charm on us, but not only on us, on the Order as well, and then…” He paused, trying to string together a few words of substance which wouldn’t earn him a fit of derision or something much, much worse. “I have no idea what it was or where it came from, but all of a sudden everything turned green and those who are missing went… well… missing.” His collar rustled as he shook his head. “There’s no explanation for it. It really is strange.”

Draco supposed that from the perspective of an uninitiated underling, seeing a wave of green wash away scores of his fellow fighters and enemies did qualify as fairly peculiar. What struck _him_ as funny, though, was being in his own home after a year of having no access to it whatsoever, kneeling on the floor of the manor’s drawing room, head down and struggling not to show any signs of being affected by the setting, as if every inch of the place wasn’t screaming memories at him like a camera bewitched to churn out family photos.

Shoved to the wall, along with the long table and tall chairs, was the silk armchair grandfather Abraxas used to favour whenever he came to the conclusion his grandson was being too noisy with the toy broomstick, called him over, and quizzed him about the Malfoy family tree, going back to the times of William the Conqueror.

The column by the fireplace was Draco’s fail-proof hideout whenever he roped Dobby into playing hide-and-seek. It took his five-year old noggin’ a while to realise the elf wasn’t falling for the same trick over and over, but had in fact been ordered by mother to go along with it and pretend not to see him.

The spot in front of the mahogany desk was where Draco stood last June when he learned how much his own father valued him.

And of course, mother’s room was located above the chandelier under which he now knelt.

Stealing a glance around, he found it hard to reconcile the memory of his childhood home with the military headquarters it became. The drawing room where the Malfoy family had schemed, bribed, and played chess for over thirty generations was filled with a line after line of Death Eaters, squad commanders, and Snatcher leaders—any surviving member of the army who could be considered in charge of something. Kneeling on the hard floor, they were waiting to explain how exactly a final victory turned into the heaviest blow the Dark Lord had suffered.

The men and women were uninvited guests, invaders who treated the manor with the same sense of ownership as any other household they felt entitled to barge into and terrorise. And Draco couldn’t comprehend how for all intents and purposes, there was no difference between them and him.

“From my squad, it took Rex Avery, Augustine Nott, and Hamish Kneen,” Scabior said and knelt down, his report finished.

Next to him, Humphrey Goyle stood up unprompted and spilled out, “I lost Tarquin Jugson, Fergus Greengrass, Thorfinn Rowle, and my… my…” His words dissolved in heaves of sobbing, and Draco had to lean on his healthy hand to keep himself up, breathing deeply to suppress the nausea threatening to engulf him.

“Yes, of course,” a soft voice spoke up, the calm tone barely concealing the edge, a piece of threadbare velvet brushing against steel. “Though if I understood correctly, young Gregory wasn’t a member of your troop, was he?” There was a swirling of robes and a couple of steps on the wooden floor. “Draco! What a surprise to see you.”

Swallowing and knees creaking, he rose and ran his eyes over the heads of those in front of him until he was met with the piercing gaze of the Dark Lord.

“Remind me—how many accompanied you?”

“Six, my lord.”

“And how many managed to survive under your leadership?”

Draco paused, as if answering could make the reality of his failure more painful than it already was.

“One, my lord.”

The red eyes, set deep in the chalky-white head, bored into him with such intensity he felt them at the back of his skull. “How unfortunate. How predictable.”

The heavy fabric of his robes snapping, the Dark Lord turned around and made a few brisk steps to one of the tall windows behind the writing desk. He stood there, looking outside at the park around the manor.

“It is a scout’s job to learn any and all facts which might pertain to the drafting of a tactical plan,” he stated, his rage betrayed by the occasional swish of his wand.

It wasn’t a question and Draco didn’t respond.

“It is especially his obligation to make the superiors aware of anything which might put said plan and themselves in danger. A defence measure, perhaps.”

Again, Draco stayed silent, doing his best to ignore how the sound of a smooth body coiling and uncoiling was getting closer and closer.

“How does it happen, then, that a person endowed with so much trust and responsibility chooses to fail so spectacularly?”

 _And here comes the part where you wipe your brain clean_.

Relying on instinct to deliver memorised lies and hide the truth underneath the amplified emotions one wanted others to perceive was crucial to the art of Occlumency and the only way to survive the section of the plan Draco had dreaded the most.

As it turned out, what his subconscious decided to send up as a shield was terror so strong it almost made him vomit.

He flung himself on the floor, shaking. “M-my lord… Please, forgive me, I… it’s the blood-traitor, Ron Weasley, we… we captured him and he did tell us the headquarters were secured, but he escaped before explaining the nature of this security, and when it became a choice between letting the Order run away and risking our skin in pursuit of your mission, despite the danger to us… there wasn’t time. I took a group of those I thought to be the most capable and we went in and did everything in our power to discover whatever it was the mudwallower was talking about. But there wasn’t anything, anything at all suggesting what was going to happen. And when it seemed the Order was about to get away we—“

“Enough!” the Dark Lord hissed and suddenly Draco’s body rose, lifted up high above the floor by an unseen force, feet dangling in the air. “The danger to you, indeed. Is the biggest, most useless coward in my army trying to tell me his abject failure was caused by an overabundance of bravery?” A few uneasy chuckles ran through the crowd. “Have you discovered some hidden depths of courage none of us noticed before? Or is the truth rather you stopped well before completing your task due to a misguided sense of self-preservation, proving yourself, yet again, unworthy of the honour given to you?”

“I-I did the best I cou—“

“Now this I can believe.” The Dark Lord raised his wand. “The question is, is your best good enough?”

 _This is it_ , Draco thought, the inevitable punishment he’d realised was coming when Moody’s new plan put him so front and centre.

He squeezed his eyes, picturing the one person who could get him through a bout of torture without revealing anything.

A new voice made itself heard, a trembling murmur which filled Draco with deepest revulsion.

“If I may be so bold, my lord… I am sure my son dedicated himself fully to the assignment entrusted to him,” his father breathed, robes rustling as he stood up. “There can be no doubt the loss of our people is tragic, especially under such peculiar circumstances. But regardless of any mistakes which may have been made, I believe we are overlooking a crucial point in this.” He made an entreating gesture and continued, elated. “Alastor Moody is dead. The Order of the Phoenix is headless. Others are gone, too. We have weakened the enemy to a degree not imagined since Dumbledore’s death, brought them to their knees. This was an unprecedented success, a great victory—“

The pressure propping Draco up vanished and before he knew it, he crashed down in an undignified heap, pain shooting up his heel.

“A great victory,” the Dark Lord whispered. When Draco looked up from the floor, he saw him glide towards father, an unreadable expression on his face. “Tell me, Lucius, do you think it was Alastor Moody we have been fighting? Can it be considered a victory to have weakened the enemy when you were ordered to smash him?” He stepped closer, a constrictor about to wrap itself around a shaking rabbit. “Do you believe it to be an unprecedented success a fifth of my army was lost in pursuit of a goal which ultimately _does-not-matter_?”

The Dark Lord continued to scrutinise Draco’s father who shifted his weight but had enough self-control not to flinch from the penetrating stare. “Make no mistake, Lucius. There is someone assuming Moody’s position as we speak, just as he himself stepped up to take the place of Albus Dumbledore. Alastor Moody was as incidental and irrelevant to the Order’s cause as any of you are to mine, regardless of the level of your skill, value, or dispensability. The snake will grow a new head, as long as its heart remains untouched.”

Grabbing father by the long hair on the back of his skull, the Dark Lord got up so close their faces were almost touching. “Nothing but killing Harry Potter will end this war, and we are no closer to accomplishing that than we were before securing this great victory of yours. You have rid me of a fly in my tea when you were supposed to rip out the thorn in my side.”

All of a sudden he released him, whipped around, and moved over to the writing desk. “Then again, rid me of the fly you did which cannot be disregarded.” He waved his hand. “Report here tomorrow. The lack of your contribution in my council has been woefully felt and I trust the time has come to rectify it. It wouldn’t do to have you gallivanting around the countryside, sniffing out common criminals when you can achieve so much more. The Malfoy blood is too valuable to be spilled in a gutter.”

Lucius Malfoy fell to his knees. “Thank you, my lord, thank you. I and my son will do our best to—”

“Your son will resume the position he held before the foolish error of his promotion was made,” the Dark Lord said and turned to the rest of those assembled, raising his wand. “Let this be a lesson to you all. Do right by me and be rewarded. Fail, and…”

A sound of swishing pierced the air and Draco clenched his teeth, expecting to be consumed by a fiery pain devouring every inch of his body. But when a voice screamed in agony, it wasn’t his own.

It was Scabior’s.

“A leader must know the weaknesses of his subordinates, however difficult it may be to keep track of them,” the Dark Lord said breezily. “Overestimating the capabilities of your soldiers costs lives which weakens the army and puts our noble cause in danger.” He jerked his wand and the tension seizing Scabior’s body subsided. “Be sure not to make such a blunder again.”

Scabior slumped to the ground. “Yes, my lord,” he breathed and with the last remnants of his strength glanced up, throwing a look of pure hatred at Draco who couldn’t believe what had transpired. Not only did he pass the interrogation unmolested, but his punishment was doled out to another and he could go pretty much with a slap on the wrist. Draco was no stranger to public humiliation, and to see the Dark Lord respond in the same way to a sign of astounding incompetence as to the simple fact of him existing unsettled him profoundly. And to cap it off, father had been given a position of leadership at the headquarters, allowed to move into his ancestral home with the implied freedom to go wherever and see whomever struck his fancy.

Did the Dark Lord decide to step away from his previous plan of Bugger Every Single Malfoy into the Ground? Or was he lulling the two of them into a false sense of security? But why would he bother when the Killing Curse was such a neat, available solution?

What in the ever-loving fuck was going on?

Draco’s musings were interrupted by a new voice, hollow and reverberating in the room. “Pardon me, my lord,” Aunt Bella protested, bowed so deep her forehead touched the floorboards. “But Lucius was by no means the only one responsible for this achievement. Many othe—“

“Severus!” the Dark Lord exclaimed and turned to the fireplace on his left, extending a hand in a gesture of welcome. “Tell me, dear friend, what do _you_ make of this?”

Draco glanced to where the fire was crackling and saw his Potions master step away from the mantelpiece, followed by the stout figure of his servant, Peter Pettigrew, who had preferred to skulk in the shadows.

Taking in Snape’s clean clothes, the visible evidence the Hogwarts kitchen was treating him as well as ever, and most importantly the noticeable absence of bags under his eyes, Draco came to the conclusion there wasn’t a person in the world he hated more right now.

Snape bowed. “My lord, it seems obvious to me that what we’re dealing with is an unfortunate result of our inability to locate and capture Fred and George Weasley. The two always had a certain, shall we say, fondness for destruction, and though their pursuits tended to erupt in feats of childish idiocy rather than in something deserving of genuine attention, it is not inconceivable those Order’s members of a more serious-minded disposition forced them to hone their craft in a way academic education didn’t.” He shrugged. “With proper guidance, even an imbecile can be steered on a path which takes him from infantile toy-making to the occasional flash of brilliance.”

“Spoken like a true teacher,” the Dark Lord chuckled and sat down into a club chair by one of the tall windows overlooking the peacock park. “Yes, I believe you are correct. Fenrir, Severus, please join me to discuss what we’re going to do about those naughty, naughty twins. Not to mention our recent giant rebellion. And of course, Potter. Always Harry Potter.”

Thus dismissed, the people in the drawing room stood up one by one, groaning and rubbing their knees. Draco followed suit and looked around, attempting to figure out whom to avoid and what was the best method of going about it. Scabior was hobbling to the door, radiating anger. Fenrir Greyback strolled through the parting crowd until he stopped next to Wormtail who was attending to the seated Snape and Dark Lord. Meanwhile, Aunt Bella remained kneeling on the ground, ignored and waiting for an invitation which clearly wasn’t coming.

Draco glanced up from her slouched frame and was met with a pair of grey eyes whose fixed gaze made him turn on his heel and scurry to the entrance hall as if he was dragged outside by an invisible string.

_Yeah, yeah, ideal chance to talk about the Dark Lord’s bizarre change of heart, blah, blah. Sod that. You owe him sweet bugger all. With his new cushy job and freedom, he’ll be drowning in opportunities to come if he wants. If he doesn’t, well, how bloody shocking._

He ran across the entrance hall and outside, making a deliberate effort not to take in any of it, and marched past the peacock park towards the trimmed hedge which doubled as the manor’s anti-apparition line. Behind its ornate metal gate, the rest of the army huddled in the afternoon sunshine, waiting for their leaders to emerge and tell them what was what.

Threading his way through the crowd, Draco searched for the last surviving member of his squad and the only person he wanted to see.

Her chalky face shone like a beacon, and as soon as he noticed it, Draco hurried to her, grabbed her by the sleeve, and took out his wand. One turn on the spot later and they were in front of the rotting shack Scabior called a base, clinging to each other.

“What the hell, Draco?” Pansy sobbed. “What the hell?”

He kept quiet and held her, his body growing heavy with exhaustion for the first time since he and Weasley went through the capturing charade a day ago.

“They’re dead. Do you realise that? They’re dead, our friends are bloody dead, Millie and Theo and—“

“I know, Pans. I know.”

Taking her by the elbow, Draco led Pansy into what could jokingly be called his room—a thirteen-by-fifteen patch of space which offered no privacy whatsoever, covered as it was with one old mattress next to another, with a narrow path by the wall, leading to a kitchenette and confined bathroom. The place could fit twenty sleepers if they didn’t toss around too much, but since Scabior’s unit consisted of thirty-two rovers, accommodations could get tricky fast. Scabior saw no need to waste the effort required to enlarge the cottage, seeing how “most of you are out roving, anyway”. Personal possessions were an unknown luxury—if you didn’t have it on you, it wasn’t yours. Even the two spare sets of clothing Draco had brought from his stint at Fernsby’s—the last remainder of the things he grabbed from his Hogwarts luggage when he was being kicked out of his own home—had to be enchanted to a miniature size and hidden into a mattress to prevent them from being stolen on day one.

The shack was empty at the moment. Scabior must have had other reasons for storming out like a gnome fleeing a withered garden than gathering his troop and laying down a plan to get into the Dark Lord’s favour.

Pansy collapsed on the single chair by the window while Draco went to the kitchenette and retrieved a bottle of rye; if there was an occasion which called for pinching from the supplies, this was it. He handed the flask to Pansy, watched her take a swig, and stashed it away, aware that he needed to keep his wits about him and if he joined her, he’d fall asleep in about a minute.

She shook her head, staring vacantly at the floor. “What the hell happened back there?”

“You tell me, Pans,” he said and plopped himself down on the edge of a mattress, shaking off his dirty cloak. “I missed the whole damn fight. One moment, I’m blundering with the rest of you in the dark, aware of fuck all, and the next thing I know, Weasley clears the smoke away and suddenly there’s Longbottom, hexing me to hell and forcing me to retreat into the nearest building. If one of the giants didn’t take a kip straight on the roof, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah, not the proudest moment of my life. Just my luck, I suppose, being around when the dunglicker decides to grow a pair. Then again, all things considered it was the least remarkable thing that occurred today.”

“But what did occur today, Draco?” Pansy exclaimed, her voice tinged with grief and desperation. “Do you know? Do those at the headquarters? Because I sure have no damn clue!” She hid her face in her palms. “It went to pot so fast. There were so many people, so much noise, no time to think anything through. It was either go in, or let the Order escape through the forest. And the giants, Merlin, that was the stupidest idea ever to send them in. I told Macnair as soon as he arrived the place was too bloody narrow, that they’d get spooked and run away, but did he listen? Of course not, oh no sir, he knew better than a mouthy scout, those giants were going to do our work for us, just you watch, dumb girl. Well, now he’s stomped into the dirt and so is half of those who are gone! And you… You were nowhere to be seen!”

“I told you, the kerfuffle with Longbottom held me up.” He made a passionate gesture. “By the time I managed to freeze his arse and fling him out of the window, the Order was everywhere and there was no way I could stick my head out without getting killed on the spot, let alone get to you. One flank of the army broke away so I joined them. We took the Order from the side and it seemed to be going pretty well but then…”

They fell silent, a question hanging in the air.

“Pans?” Draco said, his voice as weak as whenever he questioned mother about the logic of monsters living everywhere but under his bed. “Why are they dead?”

Her face crumpled and she took a shaky breath. “We did what you said—fell behind, informed those at the front, and moved to the rear to get the rest up to speed. That was supposed to be our job, anyway. But with the chaos raging everywhere and people not waiting to pour in… It was like being carried by a current. We got pushed into the battlefield. I suppose with everyone thinking this was it, the last proper battle of the war… They were itching to snatch themselves a piece of glory, without giving a toss about commands or organisation or anything.” There was a brief pause, probably to hide how her voice was sounding wetter and wetter with each word. “Tracey was right next to me when it happened,” she said. “We decided to follow the others and get the hell away through one of the alleys, because there was no point in risking being trampled for one second longer. I was looking straight at her when everything turned green. A moment later, it all returned to normal except she was gone.”

For a while, the room was quiet apart from the sound of her jerky breathing.

Straightening up, Pansy rubbed at her cheeks. “I talked to the survivors, you know, while we were waiting in front of the manor for the bigwigs to come out.” Her eyes were large and damp and full of confusion. “None of them gets it. The Order ran outside when they had no reason to. I mean, you were there, we didn’t see them, the houses seemed empty to us. They could have stayed inside, wait for us to drop our guard while we were holding them in, and then pick us off one by one. Instead, they lurched out into the open, with no cover whatsoever. You’d think they’d have a contingency plan for a situation like this, but apparently no.”

 _Oh, right_ , Draco thought. _Did you actually believe you’d be able to share a simple moment of grief with an old friend?_

“Yeah, I’ve been asking myself the same question. We must have triggered the security, the one Weasley was talking about. I know _I_ went into a couple of those buildings when the smoke was down, to check if there was a way to enter the headquarters. Who’s to say none of the others did the same?” he said with a whiff of wonder. “The Order must have realised what was coming and knew they had to get away before the headquarters blew up.”

She frowned. “Could be, but why didn’t they attack us head on and try to break out if this was the case? Why did they dash into the one direction which was completely closed off?”

“People panic, Pans, act on instinct,” Draco shrugged. “If you see a threat, a huge army advancing on you, it’s natural for you to run away, even though it’d be more logical to do the exact opposite.” He chuckled unhappily. “Just look at Blaise. He has this lesson down to a T. There I was, offering him the opportunity of a lifetime, and he sent me packing. One’d believe he acted on instinct, let himself be scared. But turns out, he’s the one who actually grasped what a ridiculous act of self-sabotage it’d be to get himself tainted by the human version of a portable swamp.”

Pansy looked up sharply. Her eyes narrowed into slits and her features hardened, as if it was only now she noticed who was sitting in front of her. Comprehension erased her open expression, a shutter clanking down a shop window, and his heart clenched at the sight.

_She’s not dumb, Draco. That’s one of the things you’ve always liked about her. No need to get hung up on what was going to happen regardless, whether you’d opened your damn gob or not._

A voice broke the uncomfortable silence.

“Miss Parkinson.”

They both jerked and turned to the door, interrupting their staring contest.

The frame was filled up by the imposing figure of their Potions master, taking the room in, one hand resting on the back of the other.

“You are requested at the headquarters.”

“Wh—“ Pansy sputtered, glancing from Snape to Draco and at the door again. “Err, what, me?”

Snape gave his usual cold smile, an almost imperceptible movement which barely lifted the corners of his mouth. “Yes, you. It’s not every day that I allow myself to be treated like a common owl. So if I were you, I wouldn’t try my patience by sitting and gawking. It’s strained as it is.”

Bewildered, Pansy rose from the rickety chair and moved to leave. But then she stopped and threw Draco one last look, so full of sadness it made his breath hitch.

“Goodbye.”

 _Not_ see you around _. Well, what did you expect_ — _a smooch and a promise to be here for you till the end?_

Snape stepped aside to let Pansy through, and stayed quiet until the pop of her Disapparating ripped through the air.

He tilted his head and glanced down at Draco from the corner of his eye, as if he found the idea of turning around beneath him. “I’d have come sooner but her base seemed like a more logical place for you two to go. In my defence, it didn’t occur to me you might actually want her to see where you live.”

Draco didn’t answer. He couldn’t think of a single reason why his former teacher would forego a chinwag with the Dark Lord over corpses and teacakes, and was so beyond disinterested in finding out it wasn’t even funny. There were more important things to attend to, like washing the blood and grime off himself, mending yet another tear in his trousers, or piecing together whatever survived of his conscience, not to mention the sweet oblivion which awaited him once he laid down on the mattress.

If the greasy barrel of pigwank wanted to gloat, he’d have to provide his own amusement.

Giving him a once-over, Snape continued with an air of flippant indifference. “I trust it’s not too forward of me to note how dreadful you look.”

“Glad you noticed.” Draco pointed at the door. “Out.”

The dripping wanksock raised its eyebrows. “It’s natural for young men your age to have an insufficient hold on their emotions. But while the circumstances do call for a show of sympathy on my part, there are limits to what I can, or indeed am willing to tolerate.”

“Blimey.” Draco threw himself down on the mattress. “I’m feeling increasingly out of fucks myself.”

Wrinkling his nose, Snape peeled himself from the doorway and marched into the room, taking a few steps until he had to stop in front of the smudged window. “There’ve been few opportunities to take interest in anyone’s personal theatrics, with the many, _many_ new developments which have occurred. Some, though, are finding it ever more difficult to ignore the reality of your situation.”

Draco snorted and let his eyes rove to the ceiling. “I don’t need help. Not from you, not from my father, not from anybody.”

“You will of course understand our views on the matter differ.”

“I, of course, will not.”

“Oh for Merlin’s sakes, stop being such a child,” Snape hissed and spun around, robes billowing. “It doesn’t become you to inflict a bad impression of Potter on the world. One belligerent toddler is more than enough.” He sat down on Pansy’s chair with a heavy _oomph_. “Your father asked if there was a way for me to use my influence with the Dark Lord to your advantage.”

“Strange that he’d bother.” Draco tilted his head for a better view, but otherwise stayed as he was, sprawled on the mattress like a starfish. “Where’s the sense in approaching someone known to build his own nest by back-stabbing others?”

“Trust me, I’ve been involved in your family drama far more than any person not bound for hell should,” Snape retorted, pulling a face. “Unfortunately, the answer I had to give Lucius was that his removal from active combat did not in fact signal a change of fortune, but was rather a result of extraordinary circumstances, not all of which were under his control. The Dark Lord shows no more amenability to letting your family out of the kennel than before.” Stirring on the hard chair, he straightened his robes. “I also informed him I did try to intervene on your behalf in the past. But the Dark Lord is convinced you’re an arrogant incompetent at best, a disillusioned fighter for the cause at worst.”

Draco burst out laughing. “You? Intervening on _my_ behalf?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he snapped. “I know you believe the Dumbledore mission was about us vying for the Dark Lord’s favour. But while you do possess a strong potential, you’ll forgive me for saying the idea of me seeing you as anything resembling a rival is utterly ridiculous.”

He shook his head and looked out of the window. “Anyway, what I kept from your father was that the Dark Lord was going to recall _a_ Malfoy no matter what, for reasons I can’t get into at the moment but which have nothing to do with either of you proving yourselves worthy. Lucius was chosen because his undeniable success today would prevent people from wondering.” He shrugged. “It could have just as well been you.”

Draco’s resolve not to give an inch was as strong as ever, but he found himself intrigued. He’d guessed the Dark Lord might have had an ulterior motive in elevating father, so finding out he’d indeed hit the bull’s eye was no surprise. What did pique his curiosity, though, was why Snape decided to play divide and conquer by divvying up information and making sure the father and son wouldn’t use their new manoeuvring ability to join forces and work together.

The old cum stain couldn’t possibly believe he’d win Draco over by appealing to the mother of all daddy issues, could he?

Growing visibly irritated with Draco’s insistence not to show any interest whatsoever, Snape continued. “As you’ve never given me a reason to doubt your devotion to what the Dark Lord is attempting to achieve, the obvious conclusion is you’re being constrained by the external limits imposed on you.” He looked around the room meaningfully. “That being said, I can’t help but wonder if there is some other explanation as to why your performance this morning has been, quite frankly, catastrophic and not to be expected from a person of your skills.”

 _Well, professor, my so-called performance was crap by design since going along with Moody’s new plan made any other outcome out of the question. And while I thought at the time it was a gift from above and pushing myself into the spotlight would save my mates, I’m more and more doubtful it was worth it as they’re now kinda sorta mostly toast. My ex won’t speak to me, I’ve been sleeping like shit for the past year, my kill count is becoming the stuff of legends, and the only person left with whom I can have a frank conversation about any of this is unavailable due to the minor fact of her fighting for the other side_ — _the same side, by the way, on whose account I’ve committed a mass murder in the misguided belief it’d end the war, or at least the part of it which requires_ me _to go out and kill. Ironic, huh? Oh, and I’m also spying for the Order of the Phoenix which, as you can imagine, causes me no small amount of stress. Good talk!_

He didn’t say a word.

Snape took a deep breath, getting ready to plunge into a tub of festering turds by the sound of it. “Draco, in these times, it’s inevitable for one to be despondent once in a while, to think it’s hopeless and nothing will change for the better. But you must not give into that… bad feeling inside you,” he forced out, the cheesy wisdom pulled out of him as if he had been sent to instruct a tween to cut down on masturbating.

Despite the distaste Draco felt for his Potions master, he made a mental note that should he ever find himself in a position to request his last wish from the Dark Lord, it would be to watch Snape play the fatherly role and give clichéd life lessons.

“Thanks. Get to the birds and the bees next, I’m in a dire need of entertainment.”

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. “What I’m trying to say is that I do not share the Dark Lord’s belief your appetite for promoting our cause has only ever been a naïve childish fancy, or that you’d be incapable of doing it even if your chief ambition wasn’t the proverbial quiet life. In my view, it’s an issue of proper motivation rather than laziness or a lack of talent.”

“Sure. Throw in an extra bowl of gruel and I’m on my way to stop fucking u—“

“Would you like to see your mother?”

Draco tensed and rested on his elbows without meaning to, giving Snape his undivided attention. The sheer shock may have stopped his brain from working but he found no catch in the offer, no strings attached, and even if there were any…

He nodded.

“Good.” Snape stood up and moved to the doorway. “You’ll be sent for as soon as the meeting’s arranged. I won’t insult your intelligence by reminding you this needs to remain a secret for the time being.”

Draco narrowed his eyes. “You just did.”

“Oh well.” Snape gave a tiny smile which didn’t reach his eyes, and with that marched out of the shack, leaving behind no evidence of his presence but the soft echo of his Disapparition.

Alone at last, Draco collapsed on the mattress, unable to move, unable to think, unable to do anything, really, but let himself be bathed by the silence in the room and the soft murmuring of the woods beyond the thin walls. The leaves rustled in the wind and the water from yesterday’s rain dripped on the forest floor, an overwhelming sense of isolation allowing him to pretend the day’s events had been nothing but the work of an overactive imagination.

His body grew heavier with each breath, his mind less and less present. But he couldn’t drift off yet, there were things to do—digging up a change of clothes from the bedding, treating his wounds, or at least having a shower to get clean.

Clean; there was a funny concept to entertain. What would it matter if he went to sleep covered in shit from now on when nothing could rid him of the blood on his hands? Moody had been the one thinking in “clean”, raving about precision strikes and the diminished risk to his own side. Granger, too, dabbled in “clean” a teensy bit, though she was mostly fine letting her rationalisations muddle the uncomfortable parts of what they’d been doing.

Draco, though? He had to divide the plan into absurdly miniscule portions to prevent himself from obsessing over what was awaiting him at the end of the road, turn them into goals in and of themselves to get through the days as they brought him closer and closer to the reality of being a monster.

_You are not a killer._

Well, he was now, and had been for a while, so feel free to shut up and stay dead, old geezer.

And besides, it wasn’t like he’d had a choice. Pansy’s thinking had never strayed from “do well, secure a position” and Moody had gone through his life without seeing those who opposed _his_ vision of the world as anything other than cockroaches to be crushed without mercy. So why the hell should Draco be the one torturing himself over what was right and what was wrong? He had a mother to protect, and that trumped everything.

_We’re talking about other people’s very right to exist, Malfoy._

His last thought before falling asleep was that he needed to speak with Granger.


	7. Chapter 7

One hundred and thirty-eight, one-hundred and thirty-nine, one hundred and forty, one hundred and fifty-two, one hundred and fifty-nine, three hundred and sixty-three, three hundred and sixty-four, one thousand six hundred and seventy-five, one thousand six hundred and seventy-six….

The twisting steps of the tower kept rising to meet his feet no matter how fast he tried to descend them, and he ran and ran and ran, in the dead of night, surrounded by emptiness on both sides, desperately trying to escape the kind voice that wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

“So many, Draco,” it spoke as the steps in front of him blurred together. “So many, so many, new ones each day, chocolate and tripe, peppermint and dirt, honey and vomit, cinnamon and soap, bacon and pepper…”

One thousand six hundred and ninety-two, one thousand six hundred and ninety-three, one thousand six hundred and ninety-four…

“Marmalade and boogers, pineapple and mincemeat, apple and sulphur, gravy and chilli. Can you tell them apart? So many, so many, sherry and earwax, toffee and sardine, pumpkin and…”

His foot slipped on the edge of step number two thousand and thirty-eight, and he was falling, tumbling down the endless staircase, a meat-sack thrown from one stair to another, rolling and rolling and rolling until he landed smack in the middle of a huge vat overflowing with Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, each the exact same shade of green.

A blond dwarf was sitting on the edge, legs submerged in the sea of candy, each hand holding a single bean.

“Lemon and orange, lemon and orange, lemon and orange…”

As the sweets yielded under Draco, the dwarf looked up and squealed, “Oh, they’re sending me a big person? Finally, someone who can deal with this! Quick, mister, we have a quota to meet!”

Draco waved his arms to keep afloat, but it made no matter and he began to sink, the candy filling his vision with green, the voice babbling incessantly above.

“Lemon and orange, which one’s which? Hey, where are you going, mister? Don’t leave me alone, sir! I can’t tell the difference on my own!”

_Too much, it’s too much_ , Draco thought as he struggled to trash and kick about, attempting in vain to find purchase.

The pressure of pounds upon pounds of candy stopped crushing his body and he found himself lying face down on a slimy floor.

A long hallway stretched ahead of him, unlit except for two pin-sized torches at the end where the walls met. As a cold presence swelled around him like the waters of the Great Lake, certainty gripped him that unless he managed to get to the barely perceptible fire soon, it’d go extinguished and he would stay here, forever locked with whatever made him freeze in terror.

The passageway might have been unrecognisable to him, but the person who peeled himself from the wall was no stranger.

Slowly reaching inside his robes, Anthony Goldstein moved in his direction, and when the bloodless apparition laid its eyes on him, Draco knew for a fact it came to kill.

As he darted down the gloomy corridor to get far, far away, others stepped out of the shadows on both sides, deliberate and with blank expressions, some holding wands, others wandless but all filing up behind him.

_Fergus Greengrass_

_The freckled Muggle-born_

_Gregory Goyle_

_The weeping fighter he abandoned_

_Tracey Davis_

_Greyback’s mangled toy_

_Thorfinn Rowle_

_The wide-eyed shopkeeper_

_Hamish Kneen_

_The last-minute blood traitor_

_Theodore Nott_

_The half-blood who didn’t choose_

_Marcus Flint_

_The recruit he tortured_

_Sturgis Podmore_

_The cocky newbie he sent in first_

_Rex Avery_

_The Muggle with the limp_

_Tarquin Jugson_

_The begging thief_

_Vincent Crabbe_

_The fleeing official with full arms_

_Mad-Eye Moody_

_The scarred woman who missed_

_Millicent Bulstrode_

_The Auror behind the door_

_Augustine Nott_

_The Order’s rookie with the accent_

_Albus Dumbledore_

_The Muggle girl who called him Drake_

A face after face after face of those Draco had caused to die.

And then one which had no business being there.

Granger slammed into him with the force of a runaway Hippogriff, and as Draco grabbed her to keep both of them upright, he forgot to care about anything but her popped-out eyes.

She seized the front of his shirt and pleaded, completely unhinged. “We have to go.”

But there was nowhere to escape. They were standing on a tiny island of crumbling floor in the middle of a round hall, suspended above a ravine blazing swelters of fire and heat and smoke and death. Every person who had been pursuing him was spread out on a marble ridge by the walls, unmoving and waiting.

Granger tugged at his shirt and whimpered, “We have to go.”

She couldn’t mean…

As soon as Draco moved to glance into the bottomless pit of hell roaring below, he felt the wizards and witches in the crowd draw their wands and aim them with lethal accuracy.

Granger’s brown eyes were wide in her head and Draco found himself unable to look away. “Do you trust me?” she whispered and stepped closer.

Taking in the beseeching expression, the oddly calming gaze assuring him everything was going to be alright, he heard himself answer.

“I trust you.”

Clinging to her for dear life, Draco allowed Granger to tip them over the edge, and as scores of green beams hit empty air where he stood a moment ago, gravity claimed him and he began to fall.


	8. Chapter 8

Jerking, he woke up.

It took him a few seconds to come out of the haze of dreaming and recognise where he was—collapsed on a thin mattress no one ever bothered to refill, eyes opening to the filthy ceiling of Scabior’s base, limbs tingly and neck stiff since he’d never changed the position in which he remembered falling asleep.

Feeling heavy as if made from lead, Draco turned his head and glanced at his wrist watch—6.30.

Flooded with the soft orange glow of the setting sun, the room was filled with the sounds of twenty-eight exhausted survivors getting ready to lay down for a night of uncomfortable sleep; sleep which would bring them little relief before yet another day of plodding on a road whose end they couldn’t see—something Draco, gripped with astonishment, didn’t have to worry about any longer.

Although he slept for only three hours, his mind was clearer than at any other point in his life.

He burst out laughing.

“Something funny, you prat?”

Resting on his elbows, Draco turned around and was met with the piercing gaze of one Demelza Elphick, a middle-aged witch with too few teeth and too much promise in her eyes to pummel him on the nose if he gave an answer she didn’t like.

“Yeah,” he nodded and sat up, ludicrously happy. “I’ve just understood—I’m awful at this. I mean, I completely and utterly suck at this.”

She blinked in surprise and snorted, lying down. “Well, admitting it is the first step, I suppose.”

Chuckling, he shifted for her to get comfortable, and drew his knees to his chest, glancing around the room which was full of Scabior’s subordinates, all either ignoring him or throwing him looks which promised hell to pay.

It was so simple. How come he hadn’t seen it before?

Unlike Granger, Draco couldn’t find the self-righteousness, the assuredness, or the will to fight for a vision of the world he believed in, partly because there was no such vision in his mind. He didn’t have the cold-bloodedness Moody or father possessed which allowed them to remove the humanity of those on the other side and clear them away. The ease with which Pansy was able to not think about the human cost kept eluding him, and his sanity couldn’t find refuge in hatred because he didn’t hate the enemy, whoever it was supposed to be that day.

It didn’t make one iota of difference to him whether he killed for the Dark Lord, or for the Order of the Phoenix.

Because he wasn’t a killer.

_He-could-not-do-this._

The entanglements binding him snapped, the overstretched cords of a suspension bridge which had connected him to a way of thinking he didn’t comprehend anymore.

It was so simple, so bloody simple. Instead of doing a string of bad things, one worse than the other, he’d win the game by doing a single one, so trite it made him dizzy with giddiness.

Was this what freedom felt like?

“Malfoy!”

His head shot up. Scabior was standing in the doorway, wearing a scowl which said he’d love nothing more than to leap over and beat the ever-loving daylights out of Draco.

“You’re wanted at the headquarters.”

Draco gawped at him like Snape confronted with a bottle of shampoo. “What, now?” he said, unwilling to believe his luck.

“No, not until the Dark Lord is done knitting my socks,” Scabior retorted. “Of course now. Or do you have something more important to do?”

“No, no, Merlin, no,” Draco said and got up from the mattress, stomach alive with butterflies. “I’m surprised, is all.”

He made to move past Scabior and outside but once they were level, his superior snatched him under the arm and pulled him close. “I have a job for you once you’re back” he hissed with so much venom it would have made Draco worry about his future if he weren’t certain this was the last time they spoke.

Giving a sharp nod, Draco wrenched himself free and marched outside where he took out his wand and turned on the spot, not deeming the shack worthy of a parting look. One rush of nausea later, and the manor’s green hedge came into view, holding the vast flock of albino peacocks wandering about the park. Before Draco managed to open his mouth, the ornate metal gate creaked and parted, letting him in.

A good sign, surely.

At the other end of the fine gravel path, a man he’d never met was leaning against one of the pillars of the loggia, waiting. Draco strode up to him, quickly enough to satisfy his need to forget about caution and run, slowly enough to appear like an anxious underling coming for an audience.

“I’m wante—”

“In the library.”

Apparently, Snape did actually keep his word.

Nodding at the man, Draco stormed inside, through the entrance hall, around a couple of wizards who stood guard, and up the double staircase, taking the steps by two, his mind exploding with possibilities which would have seemed a pure fantasy a few hours ago.

With the revelation that the Dark Lord in fact needed the Malfoy family for his own purposes, whatever those were, there was no better way to guarantee father a royal treatment than to remove the other two Malfoys from the equation. Draco was going to grab mother and they’d march together to whomever was in charge of the Order, point to the crapton of things he’d done for the wankers, small and big and smart and risky and most importantly _soul-destroying_ , and demand to be yanked away from the war, right the fuck now.

Granger would likely have the gall to be disappointed with him but her misplaced expectations weren’t his problem; not at Hogwarts and certainly not later. This had never been his fight and it was a giant mistake to get involved in it. The most anyone had a right to ask of him was to stand aside and not interfere.

And hell, if push came to shove and he was forced to take part, he’d talk Granger into an arrangement where he’d be helping out with the secret mission, Moody be damned. His brains were nothing to scoff at, after all.

Sod it, he’d mend Potty’s pants by hand and without three pairs of gloves on if it came down to it.

Anything. He’d do bloody _anything_ which didn’t include continuing down this road, didn’t entail life draining from his body with every new person he abandoned or tortured or killed. Because failure of a human being or not, he earned it. He fucking earned it.

Mother had to see the sense in this, she had to. And if she didn’t, well…

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d put a person under the Imperius Curse, would it?

Draco reached the top of the staircase and set out down the gallery, passing one carved door after another, until the robust double wing entrance to the library appeared on his right. Grabbing both of the heavy knobs, he didn’t hesitate to barge in without knocking, a greeting on his lips.

He stopped dead in his tracks, feeling as though an infuriated centaur kicked him in the chest.

Sitting in the club chair by the window wasn’t his mother.

It wasn’t Snape.

It wasn’t even the Dark Lord.

It was his aunt.

“Hello, sweetie!” Bellatrix Lestrange called out cheerfully, her face falling as soon as she saw him. “Oh dear, do we look ever so shocked. What, were you expecting someone else?”

_Calm down and focus, focus, dammit!_

“Yes, in fact, I…” Seeing her motion him over, Draco closed the door, scrambling for an answer. “I thought I was meeting with the Dark Lord, that he changed his mind about punishing me.”

Fixing him with her unflinching gaze, Aunt Bella watched him approach the round reading table and sit down in the chair opposite. “My, my, aren’t we a bit… presumptuous?” She wiggled her fingers and a teapot dotted with tiny blue flowers appeared in the air, pouring a trickle of steaming liquid into a porcelain cup. “Tea?”

The cup floated to Draco who accepted it with stiff hands.

She reclined in the club chair, the unusual slouch of her posture making her appear small and fragile. “The Dark Lord decided to unwind with some light shopping in Diagon Alley. A very important trip, for select few, the _reliable_ ones,” she said. “And besides, trust me—if he wanted to punish you, he’d have either done it at the meeting, or called a new one to give everyone a public lesson. To expect he’d give the honour of his undivided attention, the mercy of private death to a speck of dirt under his feet, to think he’d let you occupy his thoughts for this long…” She tsked. “Although I must admit, it’s a pleasant surprise to see you so aware of your position. Self-awareness is a good quality to have, don’t you agree? One your father sadly lacks.”

There was another wiggle of slender fingers, and a platter popped up on the table. “Biscuits?”

Draco forced himself to release his grip on the cup and her shoulders slumped. “Oh, do relax, Draco, you’re not here to be disciplined. I’m actually happy to see you. To be honest, for a moment back there, I feared we might have lost you, even before the battle started.” Her open features were giving off an air of confusion. “We arrive with the army and who’s there to give a report? Is it the lead scout? No, it’s the Parkinson girl and poor young Goyle, with you nowhere to be found.”

_So, we’re back to this, huh?_

“Yes, about that, I… I actually hoped to be spared the embarrassment but…” He lifted the cup from the saucer, making a pregnant pause to let the statement sit for a while, to gather his thoughts and stroke her ego by acknowledging who was the top dog in the room.

“Do go on,” she prodded, a predatory gleam in her eyes.

“Somebody held me up, attacked me before we called the army. You’ll never guess who it was, too.” He took a while sipping the sugary tea, milking the juicy morsel for what it was worth. “Neville Longbottom.”

Her thin lips stretched like a frog’s, and the library resounded with her cackle. “Longbottom!” She reached across the table and patted the back of Draco’s hand. “Well, let’s not tell anyone about _that_.”

Raising the corners of his mouth in a smile of camaraderie, he concluded it was about time to learn what the hell was going on. “Aunt Bella, I don’t mean to sound rude or ungrateful you decided to summon me,” Draco said with as much humility as he could muster, putting the set down. “But I must admit to being rather unsure about what exactly I’m doing here. It’s been what, a year and a half since we last spoke? Being sent for now, after this morning’s bungle no less… It’s a bit hard to swallow.”

She leaned forward eagerly, the light of the setting sun tinging her skin orange. “See, that’s what I’ve always liked about you—you don’t overestimate your standing. Little Drakie is down, down, all the way down, and he knows it. No arrogance, no illusions of grandeur like his dada. That’s why _you_ aren’t a lost cause, because you can handle taking an honest look at yourself.”

Reclining, she ran a finger around the brim of her cup, never letting her eyes off him. “After you flew the nest, I laboured under the mistaken notion you’d be able to rise through the ranks on your own, to prove the Dark Lord wrong. Yes, yes, I know, how foolish of me to put such high expectations on a baby fresh out of school. But in my defence, this baby showed a real promise during our summer together,” she added, throwing Draco a conspiratorial smile.

Draco nodded, resisting the urge to grind his teeth. If there was one thing he had no intention of doing, it was encouraging Bellatrix to stoke up the blood-soaked memories of their summer together.

Lapping up his discomfort, she gave a soft chuckle. “So, I’ve come to the conclusion it’d be best to lend you a helping hand.”

“Yes, but why now?”

“When if not now?” she hissed and Draco supressed a flinch. “When you drag me even lower in the Dark Lord’s eyes? Hasn’t it occurred to you how your silly clanger reflects on me? Do you think it does _me_ any good to be bound by blood with dragonpox in human form?”

“I’m sor—“

“Hush, dear, will you?” Aunt Bella curled her upper lip and looked away. “What’s done is done, let’s not dwell on it. I’m sure you did your best.”

Judging from her tone, she had a definite opinion about what his best counted for.

“And besides, these things are so difficult to plan, so difficult to carry out, especially on such a short notice. A certain degree of failure is to be expected. Only a certain, though. Letting the Weasel boy escape, costing us the element of surprise…”

The library was plunged into silence, so heavy and palpable Draco felt it in the back of his throat. An irrational need to scratch his chin possessed him, to glance around the darkening room or summon granduncle Fornax into the frame of his empty painting and ask about any recent additions to the wonder which was the Malfoy book collection. But something told him it was best not to utter a peep or make a move, that the wisest course of action was to refrain from anything which might set the erratic woman off.

Aunt Bella turned to him, her expression guarded as she observed him for a good long while. “Can you keep a secret, Draco?”

He shrugged. “Depends on whom I’m keeping it from.”

This time, her laughter sounded genuine. “Good answer. But don’t worry, I don’t want you to do anything as impossible as keep secrets from the Dark Lord. Then again, wouldn’t that be a feat?”

After another gulp of tea, the beans spilled. “There’s a traitor,” Aunt Bella said, sounding as animated as if she were imparting the location of the Malfoy biscuit tin to a bothersome child.

Draco’s insides, however, turned to water. “A traitor?” he repeated, hoping to Merlin the weak squeak his lips produced was a figment of his imagination.

She waved her hand and gazed out of the window. “Do wipe that dumbstruck expression off your face, darling. We’re at war; of course there’s a traitor. Even when we’re not at war those filthy rats are swarming everywhere. Although it’s to the credit of this one they know on which side their bread is buttered. As it becomes clearer and clearer to the Order who’s going to secure the final victory in this fight, I fully expect to be drowning in the vermin.” She smiled and took a sip of tea, teeth sinking into the cup.

Draco made a mental note to later reward himself for the Herculean effort it took him not heave a giant sigh of relief and smash his forehead into the plate of biscuits.

 _Of course it’s_ that _spy who’s the talk of the town. After all, Weasley claimed this was the case, didn’t he?_

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” he said and reached for a biscuit. “It’s just that hearing those idiots at school prattle about how Mudbloods are on the same level with us, competing in being the biggest scumsucker, and when they started joining the Order in droves… I suppose they fooled me into believing someone besides Dumbledore could actually be daft enough to take the notion of blood equality seriously.”

“Ah, yes, yes. Sadly, for most people, their ostensible views are only as strong as the circumstances allow. And from what I’m hearing, reports of the Order’s fondness for dung have been exaggerated in the first place. Our rodent may have started out a Mudblood-lover but the thin layer’s been stripped away and something much more primal revealed.” Picking up a biscuit, she bared her teeth and crushed it between them. “Love of family—doesn’t it drive us all?”

“It’s been a year and the cooperation’s proved to be most fruitful,” she continued, wiggling her fingers to get rid of the crumbs. "At one point, it almost landed us Potter himself. The stream of information dried up quite a bit after that since the one-eyed freak made sure to tighten every screw and plug every hole, but still; we did learn a few valuable things.”

“This is fantastic, auntie, really, but I don’t understand why you’re tell—”

“You’re going to be the one meeting with the informant from now on,” she cut him off. “We’ll create a channel for you two to get in touch and you’ll be the one handling everything—assigning tasks, passing on what you learned to those who are actually in charge, blah blah blah. And above all, interrogations.” Her features lit up with derisive approval. “I have no doubt you’ll prove adequate as my substitute.”

Draco gaped at her, uncomprehending. “But… why me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you know of anyone else around here who dropped so low as to _need_ a leg up, h’m? How else do you propose we handle this fall from grace of yours? By never giving you a chance to do better and letting the Dark Lord forever simmer in the knowledge that incompetence is what you Malfoys are delivering on a consistent basis?” She waved her hand dismissively, a bored expression on her face. “And besides, you’re family. If one can’t trust their family to be there for them, then by Merlin, who _can_ one trust?”

Wriggling in the chair, Aunt Bella slapped both palms on the table. “So what do you say? Wait, before you say it…” She brought a finger to her lips, as if wanting to silence his barrage of enthusiastic acceptance. “Although I do want you to succeed, Draco, this is what you might call a fresh vacancy as of a few days ago. The last person I entrusted the job to didn’t do so well, and I have no interest in opening myself up to the Dark Lord’s scorn ever again, especially not on behalf of a lily-livered ankle-biter. So think before you answer because while it’d be stupid to refuse, it’d be stupider to fail me down the line.”

Draco stared at her, the cogs in his head grinding.

This was quite a turn of events. On one hand, going along with this meant Draco would have to stick around longer than he’d intended, a target of the hostility shown to him by his fellow fighters. But on the other…

Accepting aunt’s proposal would make his no-combat arrangement with the Order all but guaranteed; at the end of the day, who in the leadership wouldn’t offer a cushy hideout for the identity of a traitor? And having a direct access to the headquarters came with an increased manoeuvring ability, most importantly because it removed any reliance on Snape. Who was to say Draco couldn’t use the visits at the manor to drop by mother’s room and plan their escape in earnest, without Snape fiddling around? All it would take was wait a little longer until he met the informant face to face, and then he’d pick the most convenient opportunity to sneak off.

And the offer was a logical move from Aunt Bella’s perspective, too. By helping him, she’d be helping herself. Once Draco got the hang of Granger’s side of dealing with a contact, auntie could point to his new track record of not screwing up and claim credit.

It was a win-win.

He nodded.

“Excellent!” Aunt Bella exclaimed, bringing her hands together. “Once the dust settles, I’ll make the maggot crawl over and we can fashion you a Henwas Ring of your own.”

Despite his better judgement, Draco recoiled. It shouldn’t have surprised him she opted for this of all methods to keep tabs on somebody, but still—if one wanted to go about it in the most needlessly cruel way possible, casting a Henwas Ring was the correct choice.

Bellatrix collapsed in the chair, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “Let me tell you, it’s going to be such a relief, not having to deal with that baby. The level of coddling they need, I swear. So exhausting. You have to rule with an iron fist if you want a good guard dog, I’ve always been a firm believer in that. Show kindness to a bitch and she’ll go on to spoil the litter.” She snapped her fingers and pointed at Draco. “Which reminds me, the last handler I employed? Ruined our lovebird’s best feature so make sure they think of Apparating to a _spot_ when they want to see you. Can’t have them simply think of Apparating to a _master_ anymore.”

Draco frowned. “But isn’t that the whole point of putting a Henwas Ring on someone?”

She rolled her eyes. “What can I say, the curse isn’t built to handle multiple masters. And after your predecessor decided to take a vacation… Wouldn’t do us any good for the traitors to meet up by accident, would it?” Chuckling, she ran a hand over her face. “Three masters, blimey. Can you imagine the amount of energy poor old Henwas is generating by spinning in his grave?”

Sensing an opportunity to prove his devotion to the assignment, Draco tapped at his saucer to catch her attention. “You know, we might be able to use this to our advantage. I could have the informant Apparate to a _master_ , and chances are it’d take me to the defector. I could side-along Apparate _with_ our mole. Sure, there’s the risk of arriving at a protected location, but what’s a little danger when it comes to bringing traitors to heel, eh?”

She shook her head. “Hush, dear and listen to your auntie. One rat is more than enough for you to handle at the moment.”

“But consider the Dark Lor—“

“I said no!” she snapped and Draco suddenly noticed how his cup was the most interesting object in the room.

Aunt Bella brought one arm up and bent it, resting her temple in the crook of her elbow. “Phew, glad we’ve gotten this out of the way. Merlin, what a day, huh?”

“Indeed,” Draco confirmed, unsure if he should stay or say goodbye and thank his lucky stars he’d caught her in a good mood.

But by all accounts, she didn’t intend to send him away. “Between the two of us, honey,” Aunt Bella said in a relaxed tone, “while you might not have felt the love at the meeting earlier today, I don’t think it managed to convey exactly how scuppered we’ve in fact been. And despite Severus’ piffle about how we were bested by a couple of snot-nosed blood traitors, no one actually knows what happened. I mean, honestly,” she huffed and waved her hand, as though dismissing the latest tosh from _The Quibbler_. “How likely is it for two dropouts to whip up a piece of magic nobody’s ever seen, heard, or encountered before? And if they did, why was the Order sitting on it when the rubbish could blow them up to high heavens, willy-nilly? What was the point of keeping it around?”

Gazing at her in astonishment as if she’d sprung horns, Draco went stiff. Here she was, Bellatrix Lestrange, the master torturer, the scourge or the captives, the screeching bogeyman from the wanted posters, exhibiting the entirely human need to vent her frustrations in a mean girl bitch fit.

He could so work with this.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he countered confidently, asserting authority. “The way the organisation was set up, with everything kept in a single location, anyone with a modicum of brains would take measures to get rid of it in one fell swoop. I can only imagine the wealth of information which slipped through our fingers. Their contacts abroad, backup network, sources of food and supplies, or leads to whomever is funding the lot. If any of it fell into our hands, it’d have prevented the Order from ever regrouping.”

“Ah. The big bad wolf appears and Little Red swallows her tongue instead of giving up grandmother.” She thought about it for a moment. “No, I’m not so sure about that.”

“What do you mean?”

The answer came immediately, dripping with gravity. “There was an anti-apparition line, Draco.”

He didn’t bother to hide his disdain. “There’s always an anti-apparition line. It’s a standard procedure to cast it, even if you’re a Snatcher who stumbled on a hole in the ground.”

“True. Farrah Mattingly was in charge of placing this one.” She leaned forward, adopting a conspiratorial tone. “Except I was there when one of the giants stomped her into the ground. The spell should have died with her but when I tried using the opportunity to Apparate away from the mess, I couldn’t. The line was there and it stayed there until that… _thing_ … happened.”

Draco found the hurdle embarrassingly easy to clear. “Someone must have recast it,” he shrugged. “Mattingly’s role was no secret and being trampled to death isn’t exactly a discreet way to go. Somebody was bound to notice. Who knows, maybe this somebody thought preventing the Order from getting away was more important than their personal safety.”

If Aunt Bella couldn’t get through one conversation without being nasty, Draco was going to enjoy a jab or two as well.

Her face turned sour. “Then this person died in the blast which lifted the charm, explaining how come we’re able to enjoy this rather bland batch of biscuits. Well, it’s certainly an explanation, I suppose.”

She gasped. “I don’t know what I’m saying. What a daft auntie you must take me for. Of course that’s what occurred. How else would the line hold?” She slapped herself on the forehead, and the room tinkled with her laughter. “It’s not like the Order forgot to remove their own line and made it harder for themselves to escape as a result.”

He smiled. “No, not even they are this ridiculous.”

She let her head fall into her hands. “Merlin, it’s so hard to keep up with these twists and turns, knowing you have to second-guess everything. I swear, my brain sometimes goes,” she whined and drew a frantic circle in the air, “at trying to piece this together. Take this flaming disaster, for example. Everything the traitor had been telling us about the Order pointed to them being scattered like a bunch of rats. And yet those on the ground began reporting the precise opposite. Was the Order leading us into a trap? No, they weren’t, the pest confirmed that when I dragged them over, said the scumsuckers did move to a single place. But who had to wake up at four in the morning, worrying our legs might be pulled? Who has to constantly think about these things? Who gets no appreciation for doing it whatsoever?”

She pointed to herself, the corners of her mouth down like a sulking toddler’s.

“And now we’re snookered as never before despite my best efforts, our giants are gone, a fifth of our army is either dead or missing, presumed dead, you have no one left, the Order lives to fight another da—”

Unable to take the moaning, Draco reached out and grabbed her hand, stopping the ludicrous rant. “Don’t worry, auntie,” he said, schooling his face into a reassuring mask. “We’ve got this. I’ve got this. I’m going to be one doing the worrying.”

For a while, aunt Bella stared at him motionless, doll-eyes wide. And then her lips curved in a smile so beaming he had to supress a need to laugh.

Playing her had been so easy he was becoming bored of it. How was he ever afraid of this broken mess of a person?

She beckoned to him with a friendly bow. Interpreting it as his leave to go, Draco got up from the chair and set out for the door, the powerful sense of carelessness and agency back in full force, mind wandering and pouring over the veritable buffet of options at his disposal.

_Mother, I’ve done it. I’ve bloody done it._

“Oh, I almost forgot…” Aunt Bella spoke up and he turned around, making out little more than a dark grey silhouette looming against the window. “Before you meet with the informant, I want you to give a thought to something that’s been gnawing at me since the last time I saw them.”

“Of course, auntie,” Draco said, oozing confidence.

At this point, the prospect of homework sounded outright nostalgic.

She stood up and slowly headed in his direction, eyes roving along the book shelves. “The nasty rat pattered to my door this morning, with a revelation you might wrap your head around better than I did.” Approaching closer, she gently took hold of his hand, cradling it in her cold palms, not looking at him, whispering. “They said there was going to be a battle.”

Draco chuckled, the sound echoing in the gloomy room. Was she seriously wondering how the traitor knew about the ambush?

“Of course they said there was going to be a battle, auntie. Weasel warned the others, remember?”

Aunt Bella gave a solemn nod. “There was something else, too.” She stood so close he smelled a sickly sweet scent wafting from her skin. “The squad in which the informant was posted, they were being sent in as the advance guard. Their job was to keep our people from getting closer, to give the rest of the Order time, the works. But the curious thing is, they weren’t allowed to use their wands, especially if it meant attacking our scouting troop. Apparently, the troop included someone Mad-Eye was dead set on protecting.”

Her head whipped up, a snake poised to strike, eyes narrowed into tiny slits, and she growled before Draco realised what was going on. “Can you please tell me who this person was?”

Suddenly his feet left the floor and he was flying until his back hit a bookcase, the edge of the shelf burying itself into his spine. Crashing on the floor, he noticed his wand shoot out from beneath his shirt and hurtling away, but then there was nothing except the foreign presence in his mind, cutting it to pieces like a flurry of daggers, rampaging and searching and looking, slender fingers tearing through a web, and no, shit, no, please, no, she’ll see, Merlin, she’ll see…

_don’t detonate it until we’re in the clear… the next time I have the misfortune of working with you… protect you from getting ratted out… we’ve emptied it last night… something horrible is going to happen… I want to share it with you… when have you ever tried to help us… between the two of us, things aren’t too good… we’re having our backs against the wall… you’re doing it for her... I’m in the Order…_

There was a shriek of purest rage and then every inch of his body exploded in millions of flames and he was screaming wordlessly as his nerves were being singed, blood boiled, brain cooked by the Cruciatus Curse.

The heat abated, but never ceased completely, licking at Draco’s skin. The angry monster in his head retreated as well, present at the edges, waiting to pounce, and as his muscles went into spasm, he became aware of a creature crawling over him, snatching him by the hair.

“You wound me, sweetheart,” Bellatrix hissed and her breath washed over his sweaty face. “What did I teach you about never letting your guard down, huh? That dim girlfriend of yours, it was clear from the first how easy she’d be to crack, marching over here so eager to please, pathetic to say the least. But you, you I had higher expectations from.” She clinched his hips between her knees. “More fool me for giving you lot the benefit of the doubt.”

A fraction of a second passed before the words set in and when they did, the next torture curse set him aflame and he had no time for being horrified by Pansy’s fate, only for erecting every patchy defence he remembered being taught, yelling silently at the beast raging and scraping inside his skull that it wasn’t him, no, it wasn’t him, he didn’t do it, please, he didn’t do it, it must have been Nott or Goyle or Bulstrode, yes, they were the traitor, not him, it wasn’t him, please, stop, please, I’m begging you, stop!

“A bit late for that, don’t you think, pet?” Bellatrix giggled in his ear and the fiery ocean ebbed away. “Oh, he’s going to be so happy, finally, so happy with me.” She lowered herself on Draco, grabbed him by the chin, and forced his unseeing eyes to look at her. “Tell me, were you waking up in the middle of the night, drenched and terrified? Did the baby cwy and scweam and call for mummy? Did you imagine what would happen to you once I found out about you? Because it’s going to happen, darling, and it will be so much worse than you feared.”

The liquid fire started coursing through his veins again and Draco moaned, growing weaker by the moment, unable to take any more, unaware of where he was any longer, there was nothing, nothing except the pain eating him alive, only the pain and the soothing dot of cold beneath it, and he hugged it close, sobbing, hugged the shimmering cloud of light which tickled his heart, the same one that set the dining table ablaze when Dobby served his four-year old self Brussels sprouts, oh how mother cried when she learned about it, summoned the household to witness the little master become a wizard, wait, mother was here, she was here, she was right next door, all he had to do was pry his mouth open and yell and she’d come, she’d save hi—

The furious rampage died down completely and Draco froze from the sheer shock. “Didn’t you listen to a word I said, pup?” Bellatrix snarled and seized him by the throat. “You have no one left. She’s gone. Your pwecious mummy pulled up the anchor and set sail.”

Through the haze of spasms and cramps, he felt thin limbs coming up to embrace him, icy fingers stroking his hair, a child’s voice whimpering in his ear. “She abandoned us, sweetie. And after everything, everything we’ve done for her, what _I’ve_ done for her, she leaves _me_ to bear his wrath.”

Bellatrix wiggled and slithered until she was lying flat on him, her weight crushing him. “No one’s coming, Draco. It’s just you and me. But Cissy left you for me to play with and I’m going to enjoy every single moment of it.”

The next curse ripped through his body and Draco gasped as the magic behind his breastbone contracted into a small ball and exploded, chasing the agony away and shooting out of his pores, trying to find a tool to save its master.

_Somebody, please, anybody…_

_Help._


	9. Chapter 9

**24th of December, 1998**

_“You did what?!”_

When she looked at his matted hair, sweaty face, or the dark stain on the forearm of his sleeve, it was hard for her to believe how much at peace she was an hour ago.

“Of all the stupid, reckless, irresponsible things you’ve done—”

“I had to know, all right?” he retorted and headed for the cabinet where they kept medical supplies, the locket bobbing up and down on his chest. “I had to talk to her. It’s been eating at me for over a year, this Skeeter business. And honestly, I thought she might help us with the hunt, being Dumbledore’s friend.” Wincing, he shook off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve, revealing two bite marks. “It may have been reckless but if you expect me to tell you it was wrong, you’re in for a good long wait.”

“But why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you wouldn’t have gone along with it!”

“Of course I wouldn’t have gone along with it, Harry!” she cried out, overcome with the mixture of worry and anger she’d felt so often when dealing with him. “Waltzing into Godrick’s Hollow, the first place anyone with half a brain thought to search for you? It was pure insanity! You could have died! Christ, you almost _did_ die, and it’s sheer dumb luck you didn’t! You-Know-Who could have snatched you, with no one the wiser.”

She clenched her fists. “I’d have been sitting here, wondering where you were, not knowing you’d never return. Did it occur to you what it would have done to me? To Molly? _Ginny_? Do you realise you almost lost us the war tonight? Or do you not care about anything anymore but your dumb hero worship?”

He gritted his teeth but otherwise seemed perfectly fine ignoring her and focusing on his wound.

Rage flared up inside her and she heard herself yell. “So yeah, you will apologise to me because this whole exercise has been completely selfish and pointless!”

His head snapped up. “Pointless,” he said coldly and fixed her with a glare. “Okay.” Using his healthy hand, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out a rolled-up folder, and threw it on the table. “You’re the smart one. Please, Hermione, tell me how _pointless_ this is.”

She came closer. “What is this?”

“It was on Bagshot’s desk. I managed to read the title before Nagini attacked me but even someone as clueless as me can figure out it’s worth keeping. Now if you excuse me, this selfish idiot needs to take a shower,” he said and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

She reached for the folder and it fell open in the middle, revealing a bunch of loose papers covered with a dense hand-writing. It looked like notes for a new manuscript.

_Strange. Hadn’t Bagshot been long retired, not to mention possibly senile?_

She thumbed to the beginning, and her breath hitched when she saw the first page.

Of course he held onto this.

In big block letters, the title read,

**TOUCHED BY GREATNESS**

**SEARCHING FOR THE TREASURE OF THE HOGWARTS FOUNDERS**


	10. Chapter 10

**7th of April, 1999**

It had been two hours since professor Lupin arrived at the cottage as the new leader of the Order of the Phoenix.

It had been two hours since he told Harry and Hermione in no uncertain terms they needed to be moved and they needed to be moved _now_ because the charms protecting them died the moment a Killing Curse struck down professor Moody.

It had been two hours since Harry and Hermione played the Dumbledore card and replied they first had to discuss how the move would affect their secret mission, sending Lupin away snappy and annoyed.

It had been two hours since their fight started.

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “All right, Harry, I’m giving up. Tell me, why not?”

“Because you’ve got nothing!” he yelled with conviction, as if it was the most obvious notion in the world.

A moment passed before she managed to process her astonishment. “Are you—are you bleeding kidding me? Nothing?” She marched over to the desk, yanked the drawer open, snatched the bulky file, and slammed it on the table so hard it split in the middle, sending loose papers floating down on the floor of the library. “Three months-worth of research, complete with a list of probable locations _and_ defences, cross-referenced with what’s known of You-Know-Who’s life and interests over the years, and you call that nothing?”

“A bunch of marks on a map, with a snowball’s chance in hell of being correct since they’re based on an off comment here and there you fished out in some book nobody’s read in the last hundred years. I’d call that nothing, Hermione, yes.”

“I’ve based them on what’s in Bagshot’s notes which, let me remind you, is the same source you’re using to concoct your fantastical nonsense of a plan where everything works out fine thanks to luck and power of belief!”

“Merlin, it might as well be a gift-wrapped step by step guide, that’s how solid the information is, and you want to go gallivanting around Cork or Argyll or wherever Hufflepuff’s cup may be, provided of course the esteemed Nigellus Bonnacord of Who Bloody Cares didn’t get the position of Mars wrong?”

“Yes, I’d rather go on an actual expedition where no one expects us and where there might be a disappointment or two before we ultimately succeed, instead of marching into a den bare-handed and trying to wrest a steak from a lion. Look, look!” Bending down, Hermione picked up a map of Great Britain from the ground and started pointing. “Ten locations, each meeting the criteria. The cup must be at one of them.”

“You don’t know that,” Harry countered but she ignored him and went on.

“The window when You-Know-Who turned it into a Horcrux is between 1945 and 1946, since those are the years when the last known owners disappeared. At that time, he showed a great appetite for mental spells during his stint at Borgin and Burkes, meaning whichever of the locations is correct, it’s likely protected either by memory charms, Legilimency, or some variation of the Confundus Charm. All we have to do is prepare for those three contingencies, go around the marked places, and bam, the cup is ours.”

“You don’t know that either!” he shouted and gestured wildly, the locket jerking on his chest. “All you have is a bunch of theories and maybes and months of hopefully working it out eventually if we’re lucky and you’re not chasing a bunch of wild geese, and that’s not good enough, that’s just not good enough anymore, Hermione, especially not after today!”

She threw her hands up. “Merlin’s beard, Harry, we are _not_ going to Hogwarts!”

Now that it was his turn to try and talk her into his plan, Harry adopted a mask of composure so strained she felt a hysterical giggle coming up. “We _know_ with one-hundred percent certainty Gryffindor’s brooch is there since every single one of Bagshot’s clues points us to one place, not several and twenty extra if the first couple don’t work out. And while we’re in the Chamber we can maybe, oh I dunno, pick up a few Basilisk fangs so that we don’t have to haul two Horcruxes around with no way to destroy them?”

“How many times have we gone over this? You don’t know if the brooch _is_ a Horcrux!”

“And what makes you so sure the cup is?”

“Wait, what?” She blinked. “Of course the cup’s a Horcrux! You saw it, Dumbledore showed you!”

“I saw Voldemort searching for the cup, not actually turning it.” He shrugged and looked aside. “And as for Dumbledore, well, it wouldn’t be the first thing he was wrong about, would it? He was wrong about Slytherin’s locket, and boy oh boy, did he ever do a botch job with Grindelwald. How can we be certain he didn’t bungle this one, too?”

“Because, Harry,” Hermione said in a singsong, “of all the trinkets and knick-knacks the notes mention, the cup’s by far the most impressive and strong. An object created by the force of human _and_ elven magic, charmed to produce whatever the owner needs at the moment? You don’t think You-Know-Who went for this as opposed to—” she checked the notes “— ‘the duelling enthusiast’s preferred accessory which immediately undid whatever creasing and tearing his clothes sustained in the heat of battle?’ Does You-Know-Who strike you as someone who gives much of a toss about what he looks like?” She leafed through the folder. “Ravenclaw’s diadem may come close in terms of sheer power, but that’s also the only thing we’ve found out about it. So yes, I’m pretty sure Hufflepuff’s cup is the way to go.”

“One, you know full well it’s not the only thing the brooch does—”

“So it helps you cast non-verbal spells when you’re drunk, big de—“

“—and two, this is your bias speaking. Voldemort hunting an object down _because_ it’s elven? Are you nuts?” Harry brought his hands to his forehead so vehemently is appeared he was about to levitate. “Besides, even if the cup _was_ the strongest object on the list, it’s not about power for him. He may have gone for Hufflepuff’s slippers for all we know and it would have made the same difference. It’s about possessing something the founders used to own, Hermione. And what a surprise! The brooch is the only thing of Gryffindor’s in here. Not to mention the only thing we actually know where to find!”

“That’s not true, we do know where to find the cup! Bagshot told us! Or did you miss the whole ‘searching’ part of her notes?”

“There’s nothing there!”

“There _was_ nothing there, until I went and found something! Or do you think I’ve been sitting on my bum since Christmas?” Hermione jabbed a finger at the folder. “Every single place or region Bagshot wrote down? The Order confirmed it as a scene of enemy action, and one she’d read about in the papers, too.” She gestured to a corner where old issues of _The Daily Prophet_ , fished out of various dumpsters by Dobby, were stacked. “And those ten? Their geography is ideal for magical manipulation. Have a good wizard there when the aspect is right and you can reshape entire landscapes, form powerful illusions, you name it. Seems like an ideal _hideout_.” She put her hands on her hips. “Tell me how it’s a coincidence. There must be a connection, Harry, otherwise Bagshot wouldn’t have included any of this.”

“Oh, she had a reason for including it, all right—she was batty. Why can’t you see it?” For a second, it seemed he was going to tap his forehead. “How does one go from reading an article to ‘huh, I suppose Death Eaters doing what Death Eaters do somehow means Voldemort is involved in precisely what I’m researching?’” Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but he raised his hand to stop her. “And even if you were right and there was a connection, even if, you’d still have no leg to stand on because the location she noted with the cup? Yeah, it doesn’t fit your own criteria. It’s a boring Muggle field in the middle of nowhere, Hermione, nothing special about it! But the brooch? We know _exactly_ what it is, where it is, and how it got there, no guessing necessary.”

“Why are we discussing this?” Hermione shook her head. “Yeah, the brooch is most likely in the castle and so are the fangs _and_ the Sorting Hat _and_ the Sword of Gryffindor if you’re feeling particularly grabby. It’s quite the treasure trove but there’s no point talking about taking any of it because _you can’t get inside!_ ”

But as always, he had an answer. “We’re going to assemble a small party, five people or so, enough to capture a patrol in Hogsmeade and interrogate them about the new security without sounding the alarm. We’ll Polyjuice as them, stun whoever’s running the Hog’s Head, and get into the Room of Requirement. McGonagall and Flitwick can clear out the corridors beforehand, and then it’s smooth sailing down into the Chamber.”

Hermione burst out laughing, not amused. “Oh, so your brilliant idea is to go with the exact same run-of-the-mill extraction plan Moody declared unworkable, what, half a year ago?”

“Right, because Moody was such a reliable source of information,” Harry scoffed. “No way he knew we had a mole in the Order and kept it to himself for months on end. Came to tell us straight away. Wait, no, he didn’t, that was Lupin, and he didn’t confirm it until tonight when he thought it’d make us panic and run away with him! So yeah, excuse me if I don’t think this Hogwarts embargo is anything but an attempt to control what we do.”

“For crying out loud, the last time anyone tried going there they were captured as early as Hogsmeade, and you’re going to stroll over, the one person the resistance can’t risk losing?” She took a step closer, hoping to get through to him. “This is utter madness, Harry. You can’t get into Hogwarts with five people, you can’t get in with twenty people. Sod it, the entire Order could hide in the hills, feeding you information, and it’d still be hopeless.”

“With a few drops of Felix—”

“Felix? _Felix_? Damn it, have you completely lost your mind?” She waved her hands around, stopping short of grabbing her hair. “The Order barely has enough money to smuggle food, and you want to splurge the last few galleons on Liquid Luck?”

“Oh, right, let’s hear Miss Thrifty give lectures on responsibility, but it wouldn’t do to mention the horror that’s my credit at the Flourish and Blotts, would it? Not much for Elfish welfare now, are we, Hermione, not when it comes to saddling Dobby with one crate of contraband after another.”

“I don’t remember you complaining when I asked him to get Skeeter’s trash for you! Been gobbling it up for a year, almost got yourself killed at Bagshot’s because of it. Well, excuse me, Harry, but I didn’t support your suicide mission then and I certainly don’t support it now!”

“For Christ sakes, I’m trying to produce results here!” he yelled, sounding as if he’d reached the end of his rope.

“No, you’re trying to make yourself feel less useless by jumping at the first option available!” she shrieked.

Deafening silence fell on the room.

Harry glared at her, fists clenching at the hips, and as seconds flew by, Hermione’s face grew hotter and hotter. Sure, she’d been thinking it for a while, but to actually say those words out loud, let alone use them to score a victory in an argument?

It was the truth, though, wasn’t it? There was no reason for him to prioritise the riskier alternative, other than to compensate for his own sense of inadequacy. And it was understandable, wanting to see results, but not to the point of jeopardising the bigger picture. Hermione had to make him see that.

“Is this about Ron?” Harry asked with unnatural calm, eyes full of something ready to swoop into action at the slightest prod.

Hermione’s heart skipped a beat.

“What?” she peeped, her voice breaking. The R-word hadn’t been uttered between the two of them since that awful night. To have it thrown in her face so casually…

“I’m serious, is this about Ron?” Harry repeated, giving a forced shrug, like he didn’t care about the answer.

“How for the love of God did you manage to go from your stupid death wish to R—”

“He opened the door, didn’t he?” Harry interrupted, looking more and more unhinged. “He got it into your head that there was another way to fight this war, less frustrating than this hunt for a needle in the haystack. Always whinging and moaning because we weren’t progressing fast enough, because he wanted another Horcrux and he wanted it yesterday. Couldn’t handle the work, the pressure, the boredom. Needed to have a clear plan, to go out and do something. So now he’s in the Order, following _your_ plan and doing something—something which got Moody killed, Ginny hooked up to Skele-Gro, and who knows how many others injured or obliterated.”

His voice dropped lower but she heard every syllable, beating into her skull with the clarity of church bells being rung.

“Those people, Hermione, they depended on us and we failed them. _You_ failed them because you weren’t here, doing the job you were supposed to do. And now you want to do it again, to take the safe route instead of ending the war as soon as possible for their sake. And in the meantime, while we’re treating this search as our personal vacation, those lucky enough to have survived will keep putting their lives on the line for two wankers who have chucked them overboard for all they know.”

He took a step forward, eyes gleaming. “Well, bugger that. This arrangement may be fine with you but I’m sure as hell not going to sit by any longer while others die for me, just because you’re too pigeon-hearted to take a risk.”

Hermione gaped at him, seeing little but fuzzy grey shapes floating in front of her as cold sweat broke all over her skin and blood drained from her brain.

None of their fights—and there had been lots since Ron slammed the door on them—ever progressed this far. It was as though the world spun out of its axis and she was left in this bizarre version of reality where Hermione Jean Granger, a teenaged bookworm, hot chocolate enthusiast, and reluctant dropout, posed as much of a threat to achieving wizarding peace as You-Know-Bleeding-Who.

Well, if Harry wanted her to be the bad guy, who was she to deny him?

“ _I_ ’ve been treating this as my personal vacation? Are you listening to yourself?” she growled, fury thrumming in the core of her being. “Tell me, Harry, how many times did you drag me and Ron on some pointless recon trip the Order needed to get done, or on other daft assignments anyone could have taken care of? Did it occur to you at any point during this projecting nonsense of yours that you’ve been doing exactly what you’re accusing _me_ and Ron of?”

“That’s different, we had nothing to go on!”

“No, _you_ had nothing to go on!” Hermione spat, rage taking hold of her, a puppeteer tugging at the strings of his puppet. “I had plenty to investigate but, oh, I’m sorry, that was stuff I learned by _research_! And as far as Harry Potter’s concerned, unless someone’s great-auntie has a crazy conspiracy theory to share or a Death Eater stuffs a piece of cryptic gibberish into your pocket or there’s a dangerous place to risk dying at like a dunce, then sod it, it’s not worth the effort!”

She folded her hands across her chest, not bothering to hide how disgusted she was. “You’re the one sabotaging this mission for instant gratification, Harry, not me.”

“And you’re the one abandoning the ship!” he roared. “Do you think I don’t notice how you’re less and less here, in every sense of the word? That there’s always something for you to worry about, somewhere to go, something to do other than work on the mission?”

He reached for Bagshot’s folder, lying on the desk next to Hermione’s research, and shoved it so close to her face she jerked on instinct. “This, this is what’s going to win us the war. Not clowning about with Fred and George, not being at the back and call of the Order, and definitely not setting up dates with Malfoy where you giggle and have fun!”

“Fun?” Hermione said incredulously, grabbing the folder and flinging it on the table. “You think it’s been fun to be drowning in research _and_ busting my gut at the workshop _and_ dropping everything at a moment’s notice to hear out whatever Malfoy needs to pass on?”

“Right, it’s not like you’re jumping at every chance to meet up with the git,” Harry said. “Honestly, Hermione, what do you two actually do that takes so freakishly long? I bet it must be entertaining, listening to him snivel how he’d love to be less of a yellow-belly waste of space if it didn’t cost him anything.”

“Or maybe it’s a nice change of pace to be around someone I can talk to like a grown-up! Or do you think I actually enjoy being yelled at all the time for nonsense that’s not my fau—“

Sharp pain pierced her hip as if she was plunged side first into a fireplace. The marrow of her bones gasped and shrieked, a phantom knife sinking into her, and she screamed, her knees buckling under the shock.

A hand shot out of nowhere to prop her up, a hint of firmness breaking through the daze and steadying her in more ways than one. As soon as Hermione felt it, she knew what was going on.

The fake galleon was out of her pocket and flying past Harry’s face, falling on the writing desk with a cling.

“What the—”

But Hermione was pushing Harry aside, limping towards the table and casting a Freezing Spell on the coin. The cloud of icy air that erupted from her wand barely dispersed before she snatched the galleon, the cooling metal stinging her sensitive fingers.

The date of issue gave no time, only a string of zeros. And where the place of issue should have spelt the rendezvous point, the galleon read a single word.

_help_

She stared at the message, uncomprehending for a moment, its meaning creeping up on her like a horrifying spectacle revealed by a pair of stage curtains being drawn open.

Clutching the coin in her fist, Hermione looked at Harry. “I need to go,” she said and turned around, running out of the room and into the hallway.

“What, now?” he exclaimed from the library, more stunned than angry. “Christ, you’re really doing a stellar job proving my point!”

But Hermione wasn’t listening anymore, brain buzzing with scenes and images falling into place, showing a scenario she couldn’t convince herself was a product of her stressed nerves.

There was no way she wasn’t marching into a bloody mess.

“Goddamn it, Hermione, wait!” Harry called from the corridor, the sound of his footsteps loud and fast behind her. But she was already outside the cottage, muscle memory bringing her over the spot where Moody’s anti-apparition line used to be a few hours ago.

“Ad Geminum!” she whispered, turning on the spot.

The galleon snatched her and she flew, tossed in a migraine-inducing whirl, her eyes assaulted by a blur of indistinct shapes, much of their colour softened by the falling dusk.

The ribbons of black and purple around her lengthened and her body stilled, suspended weightless in the air for a fraction of a second before gravity took hold. As Hermione steeled herself for landing, a hint of an object came into view, an imposing structure of stones and glass surrounded by a gleam of white, and wait, were those feathers?

But no sooner did her feet connect with soft ground than something very hard and very solid sprung up, crashing into her with the strength of a giant’s fist, and she was once again hurtling through space, the whirlwind of colours wilder than ever before.

She collapsed on the forest floor, staring breathlessly up into the indigo sky, feeling as though every inch of her became engorged with blood.

_“HERMIONE!”_

A moment passed before her body registered the damage, a few moments of muffled sound and numbness like she was submerged under water. But when her nerves did begin to fire up and screech in pain, it took all she had not to faint under the onslaught. Dots of blinding light were dancing in front of her eyes, her brain seemed ready to leak out of her ears, and an elephant was definitely sitting on her chest, crushing her lungs.

Fighting off the darkness at the edge of her vision, Hermione forced herself to focus but caught only a glimpse of green and a fringe of black hair before her mind noticed the disconnect between Harry’s motionless face and the tree branches swaying above his head. The ground beneath her rocked like a boat capsized by stormy waves, and she shot up and turned over, vomiting a torrent of gastric acid and half-digested food, convinced she’d disgorge every piece of her innards and then some.

“Jesus Christ, Hermione, what the hell happened?”

The last strings of sick left her mouth but the heaving didn’t stop and she curled up on the ground, wanting to sink into it, seeking relief which refused to come.

A hand grabbed her by the wrist and she moaned as Harry draped her arm over his neck, hoisted her up, and started dragging her away, feet stumbling under the dead weight. Hermione opened her mouth to stop him, to say she hated being upright, but then another rush of nausea arrived and she shut up instead, resting her temple against the side of his neck.

Just when she thought her knees were going to buckle, Harry unhooked her arm and sat her down. Supporting her to make sure she wouldn’t fall, he held something cold and hard to her lips.

“Here, drink this.”

Hermione’s stomach protested against the minty taste of the Invigoration Draught but in the end she managed to force one gulp down, the crushing pressure inside her skull easing up enough for her to assess the damage.

Immediately, Harry pressed on her forehead and she looked up.

“Tilt your head back or you’ll bleed again,” he warned, his voice brimming with panic. And indeed, there was a definite coppery taste in her mouth and something drying under her nostrils she didn’t register before.

Clasping Hermione’s shoulder to prevent her from collapsing, Harry fumbled around. “We’ll _have_ to go with Lupin now, there’s no way we have anything to deal with this on our own,” he said, his voice a mixture of frustration and worry. “It will slow us down, and goddamn it, Hermione, if you listened, just this on—”

“I’m not interrupting anything important, am I?”

Hermione sensed Harry freeze by her side. She glanced down, blood spurting from her nose, and her breath hitched at what she saw.

Standing in the doorway to their kitchen, looking like nothing was out of the ordinary, was Narcissa Malfoy.


	11. Chapter 11

**13th of January, 1999**

“Magic is the science we don’t understand yet.” George gave a sage nod as soon as the door slammed shut. “Did you know, Fred?”

“Oh blimey, George, thanks for informing me. I had no idea. By the way, have you heard that the wizarding world would have gone bust a long ago if it didn’t have Muggles to pinch from?”

“My, my, Fred, about nine times today, but it doesn’t hurt to round it up to a nice plump ten, in case we forget.”

“Yes, yes, we did miss the boat on the third industrial revolution, didn’t we, George?” Fred thumbed through one of the science textbooks Dobby had been sent to salvage from Seamus’ home. “Then again, what else can be expected from a society of self-satisfied gobshites who are too happy to waste seven years in a wizarding school without learning what magic is?”

“Right you are, Fred. All we can do is follow a recipe, really. Why am I able to unlock a door with Alohomora? What do I actually tap into when I cast the spell? How do I channel the energy? What is that energy? Not the faintest,” George said with exaggerated confusion. “Clearly, the only way to fix this is to cram an insanely complicated Muggle discipline in a month which none of us can do since we never studied physics or math or chemistry because, and say it with me—”

They looked at each other and concluded in unison, “Hogwarts is a fake school designed to churn out gobdaws unequipped to function in the real world.”

“Guys?” She glanced away from the blackboard with “Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester” written on it, her head throbbing from trying to comprehend the equation Seamus had scribbled. She’d been staring at the symbols for an hour but was as close to comprehending them as if he’d given the lecture in Urdu. “I appreciate you’re annoyed with him but do you mind?”

“What about you, Hermione?” Fred took his feet off the table. “Are you going to tell us to join forces and pull through?”

“That we’re stronger together and need to harness our unique perspectives for a common goal?” George added in a sugary voice and linked his hands.

“No, I’m going to tell you to shut up and stop whinging like babies,” she snapped and stabbed her finger at the blackboard. “Look, this is the situation—I don’t get it, you don’t get it, and we won’t get it by complaining. So go back to studying and maybe, _maybe_ this won’t be a complete disaster!”

“Want to know what I don’t _get_ , Hermione?” Fred snorted and threw his feet on the table. “How come you’re as clueless about this as the two of us. I mean, having one non-magical parent turned Finnigan into an encyclopaedia of Muggle trivia and obnoxiousness. But you have two of them! You should be wiping the floor with the rest of us. Instead, you’re gawping at the board with the same dumbstruck expression as George over here.”

“Thank you, Fred.”

“Always a pleasure, George.”

And she lost it. “Yeah, and do you know why? It’s because I was told the world I grew up in wasn’t actually mine, that I had to leave it and go somewhere where everything worked in a way I never knew existed. And when I arrived at this new world, I learned not only that I had a decade of knowledge to catch up on, but that there were those who hated me simply due to the accident of my birth. That the world was created to exclude people like me, and every single thing about me which didn’t conform to some bigot’s idea of who a witch is supposed to be automatically made me an intruder. That what makes Seamus or your dad a couple of curious crackpots disqualifies me from ever being taken seriously.”

She saw Fred and George trying to interrupt her but she wouldn’t be stopped. “So excuse me if I spent the next few years trying to fit in instead of hanging onto the heritage which made others believe I didn’t belong in the first place!”

She reached for the pile of books and magazines teetering on the edge of the table and snatched a volume from the top; perhaps a few math problems would help get her head into the game.

“You can sneer at Seamus all you want but he’s right about this—our society needs one hell of a wake-up call. We might as well use this war to deliver it.”


	12. Chapter 12

**7th of April, 1999**

Ears filled with the heavy silence descending on the kitchen, Hermione couldn’t tear her gaze away from the doorway, trying and failing to process the scene.

Either the world had gone insane, or she had.

Considering the circumstances, it was a toss-up.

Harry wasn’t interested in learning what was what, though. He yanked Hermione by the shoulder of her flannel shirt, but Narcissa Malfoy had her wand at the ready and was pointing it at him before he completed the tell-tale turn of his foot.

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, the politeness in her voice at odds with the sharp gesture.

Hermione didn’t see how far along Harry’s attempt to Apparate them away had been and didn’t look to check, unwilling to provoke the witch by making rapid movements.

Harry, meanwhile, apparently came to the conclusion that escaping stopped being an option. “How many?” he gritted out and stood up, releasing Hermione’s shirt and leaving her unsupported. As she lost balance and leaned on her hand, she noticed she was still clutching her wand and the enchanted galleon.

Narcissa Malfoy tilted her head. “Excuse me?”

Hands rising to show he wasn’t going to attack, Harry kept Narcissa’s wand trained at him as he edged in front of Hermione. “How many have you brought?”

Narcissa watched him inch sideways to the window, the muscles in her face betraying nothing. “I can assure you, no one’s out there. I should know since I’ve been sitting in those bushes for the last few hours. I’d have announced myself sooner if you weren’t too occupied to engage in a nice calm chat. But once you got up to abandon this cosy nest of yours, well, I had to come in and say hello.”

Easing the window latch open with his elbow, Harry pressed himself against the wall and stuck his wand out, not letting their unexpected visitor out of his sight.

“Homenum Revelio!” he yelled, but nothing happened.

The corners of Narcissa’s mouth lifted. “See?” she said, the self-satisfaction in her voice noticeable even to Hermione’s addled brain.

Harry looked as tense as a spring when he closed the window. “Why are you here?” he snapped, sounding not the least bit reassured.

“ _How_ are you here?” Hermione forced out and immediately clamped her mouth shut as another wave of sick threatened to sputter from it.

Paying her no mind, Narcissa turned away from Harry and marched over to the kitchen table. A swish and a creak later, she was sitting on one of their rickety chairs, a steaming teapot and two cups swooping down on the top. “I didn’t come to harm you,” she said, hidden from Hermione’s eyes by the edge of the table. “If you accept it as fact, this conversation will go much more smoothly.”

Harry’s voice was coming from afar as Hermione struggled not to lose consciousness. “I asked you a question. Why are you here? Explain. Now.”

“Mr. Potter, our past interactions, limited as they were, did impress your lack of good manners on me. But I have to admit, this is rather uncouth even for you. Taking care of your friend is surely more important than getting answers a few minutes sooner.”

“I was taking care of her before you barged i—”

“Then by all means, continue. It does look like a nasty concussion. Miss Granger should count herself lucky not to have ended up with a case of brain splinching. Any particular reason why she was trying to Apparate to a protected location?”

A vivid image of grey matter peeling itself off and going its merry way popped into Hermione’s head, and before she knew it, her body hit the floor and she was gasping for air, surrounded by darkness.

The cold sensation returned to her lips and a minty liquid poured down her throat, clearing away the fog which had enveloped her senses. Opening her eyes, she saw the golden locket, swaying inches from her nose. She grabbed it and shoved it under the collar of Harry’s T-shirt before accepting his hand and allowing him to pull her up.

“… a few days’ worth of rest, although someone should watch over her tonight. We can take turns if you insist.”

Harry whipped around, not letting Hermione go as she leaned on him. “What?!” he barked.

Narcissa waved her hand without looking at them. “Oh, of course. Unfortunately, I have to insist on spending a considerable amount of time with you in the near future. An intense bout of babysitting, you might want to call it. Or protecting my investments, if you prefer. Trust me, I’m as elated by the prospect as you are.”

Harry’s grip around Hermione’s shoulders tightened. “Right. I’m going to say this one last time. What do you want and how did you find us?”

“See, what you’re asking is in fact a single question, so the answer might consist of a few more words than you’re use—“

“ _SPEAK!_ ” he roared next to Hermione’s ear and she flinched. Narcissa’s only reaction was to take a measured sip of tea and savour the taste.

“I’ve defected,” she said finally and Hermione was overwhelmed with such a strong sense of déjà vu her feet moved on their own and her hands pulled up a chair opposite Narcissa.

But Harry remained standing. “You. You’ve defected,” he deadpanned. “The wife of the biggest bootlicker to lick Voldemort’s boots and we’re expected to buy you turned your back on him and told him to go whistle because, what? Being a blood supremacist and reaping the benefits doesn’t do it for you anymore?”

Narcissa fixed Harry with a steady gaze. “There are times when ideology matters, and there are others when it’s a luxury one can’t afford. We live in the latter.”

Harry snorted. “Ah, yeah. I also have those mornings when I wake up and wonder, ‘You know what I’d like to change today? Everything I’ve ever believed.’” He scrunched his nose and nodded vigorously. “I get what you’re saying.”

Making a big show of setting her wand aside, Narcissa gestured for him to join them at the table but he didn’t move. “What I _am_ saying is, what I do or do not think about anyone’s cause is no longer important. Firm convictions are nice when there’s peace and order. But sooner or later those convictions which were so enjoyable to discuss during Sunday sit-downs start coming at a cost. Reality comes to bite and compromises must be made, no matter how distasteful we find them.”

She laced her fingers together and rested her hands on the table, holding herself taller. “So this is my compromise: you’re going to summon whomever is in charge of the Order, and we’re going to draft a nice trio of pardons—one for me, one for my son, and one for my husband. A team will be set up to extract Lucius and Draco from the Dark Lord’s army. None of this will be public knowledge since every soldier will be sworn to secrecy and Obliviated after the task is fulfilled.”

Unable to look away, Hermione fumbled for Harry who plonked himself down on a chair between her and Narcissa, and felt a small cool bottle being pressed into her palm. She took another gulp. As soon as the Drought touched her tongue, the tingly heaviness in her limbs abated and yielded to a pounding headache. But if she gritted her teeth and focused, she could sense thoughts being formed, shaky lines on their way to the dots, as if drawn with a fat crayon held by an arthritic house elf.

Meanwhile, Narcissa continued. “I’ll enjoy the final say in who takes part in the mission and who doesn’t. I have a place where my family can hide, but the Order will provide a replacement should it be compromised at any point in the future. No help will be conditional on our participation in the war. The Order will create new identities for us and set funds aside so that we’d be able to start new lives elsewhere should you lose. And if you win, the Malfoy family will be restored to its former standing. That, I’m afraid, is non-negotiable.”

As Narcissa ran a finger around the edge of the cup and Harry gaped at her in mute astonishment, Hermione couldn’t help but think she had a pretty strange idea of compromising. It seemed to run in the family, though.

_Merlin’s pants, Malfoy!_

Quelling her panic, she went through her options and came up with… nothing much. She didn’t know where he was, his mum clearly had no idea about anything, nobody had a way to contact hi—

_Oh._

Hermione glanced under the table and opened her palm. The writing on the galleon spelled the exact same plea as before. Pressing her wand’s tip to the coin, she sent a new message, growing weaker as a result and resigned to the fact that until Malfoy responded there was nothing she could do.

Harry collected his wits and barked out an incredulous laughter. “Okay, that clears it right up. Make yourself at home, cocoa and blankets are over there, enjoy our foot massage Thursdays. Oh, wait, no, actually it doesn’t clear anything up, it leaves us with about a million other questions. The most important of them being, why the hell shouldn’t we leave you sitting here on your precious bum so that your Death Eater pals can come and collect you?”

Narcissa’s eyes bored into him with such intensity Hermione felt like she was intruding on a conversation she had no business overhearing. “Because doing so would cost you information which could go a long way in helping you win this war.” Narcissa twisted in her chair to face him. “What do you think my value to the Dark Lord is? Why has he kept me alive?”

“Because you’re a Malfoy,” Harry shrugged.

The broad smile couldn’t have been colder. “Reports of your intelligence haven’t been exaggerated, Mr. Potter. I am indeed a Malfoy. But what does it mean in practical terms?”

“Dunno. You crawl on your knees, assuring Voldemort how bestest he is at being a genocidal maniac?” Harry huffed, ignoring his cup of tea. “Can’t say I was ever much interested in what being a monster’s lackey involves.”

A hint of annoyance crept into Narcissa’s voice. “Do you believe the Dark Lord has much use for passionate bystanders cheering him on from the side-lines as though this is a never-ending Quidditch match?” She shook her head. “The sad truth is, I’m married to a man who denounced him, cost him the treasure he was after, and spread the news of his return long before the public was supposed to know. My son was sent on a suicide mission as a result, and as much as it pains me to say this, the Dark Lord doesn’t consider my set of talents to be worth much at our present times.”

Hermione didn’t need to have grown up in the wizarding world to know exactly what Narcissa Malfoy’s talents entailed; being born into the Muggle middle class obsessed with networking was enough to give her an idea. And while there was something to be said for holding benefits, fundraisers, and balls, playing the system while hidden under the mask of civilised society required a civilised society to exist in the first place.

And of course, that your credibility wasn’t shot because your handler kept you on a leash.

Narcissa went on. “The answer is, I’m of no value to him whatsoever, regardless of how sympathetic to his fight I may or may not be. So why am I not dead?”

When Harry didn’t reply, she leaned forward, as if willing the answer to pass from her mind to his. “Haven’t you wondered how a half-blooded criminal without a penny to his name managed to take over the Ministry of Magic and reveal himself to regular wizards and witches as exactly what he was without the Order’s membership shooting through the roof?”

Harry jerked and looked away. “Ordinary people can’t handle that a bunch of masked freaks keeps knocking on their door and threatening to kill them if they don’t support their team.” The forced shrug didn’t hide his resentment. “One has to be brave to stand up to such a pressure. Apparently, most aren’t.”

It seemed Narcissa was fighting the urge to roll her eyes. “There is only so much you can do with outright terror, though. You can tear down the system but sooner or later there must be something to replace it, a sense of stability so that people can go on as normal. Resorting to violence and fear is well and good when you’re conquering a society. But ruling? To rule, you need your subjects to be placid. And for this to happen they need to be able to pretend their lives haven’t changed that much from what they knew. They must have something to lose, even if it’s the ability to buy groceries on the way home from their job. They must _have_ a home and a job, a sense of future, a stake in the society you’re building so that when faced with the prospect of rebelling, the response will be ‘no, thank you, I have bills to pay and my child’s future to consider.’”

She drummed her fingers on the table top and stared Harry down. “How did the Dark Lord achieve it if not by frightening wizards and witches to death and taking their stuff for free?”

Harry stayed silent, but Hermione knew the answer. “Your family’s been paying for everything,” she said and for the first time since she arrived, Narcissa Malfoy turned and actually looked at her.

“The wizarding Britain has been bribed into complacency with Malfoy money,” she nodded. “When Spruce Hemlock closed down his shop, joined the Order, and left his employees without income and work, we came and provided for them and their children. When people grumbled about the ever bleaker prospects of finding a job, it was us who supported the creation of another ministry department which doesn’t actually do anything. When the Dark Lord ordered the Fund to reduce the price of its food, it was us who covered the loss. And that’s not all we’ve been funding. Anything even tangentially related to the war effort has come straight out of our pocket.”

Harry snorted. “So this is it? You don’t want to see another galleon slip through your fingers? Well gee, let me find my violin so that we can be so very sad about how the most filthy rich family in the country is becoming less filthy rich.”

Without turning away from Hermione, Narcissa shot him an annoyed glare. “Do you honestly believe the suffering the Dark Lord will inflict on me should I fall into his hands will be worth it if I know my wealth is safe? No, I’d say goodbye to the last piece of the Malfoy fortune if it meant he’d give my family the respect it deserves, or at least let us go in the end. But it’s clear that’s not going to happen. Our money is the only reason why he hasn’t done away with us, and once the last Knut disappears, so will we.”

Harry smirked. “Dunno. Have you tried grovelling more? Pushing the bar a bit lower? Baking him a snake-shaped cake, maybe?”

Narcissa growled, a shockingly rude sound when coming from her lips. “As a matter of fact, I did try. I did him a favour, put myself at personal risk for his cause and discovered something he’d long been after. And yet not a month later he sent Draco to join Lucius in combat. So trust me, I know what I’m talking about when I say there’s no future with the Dark Lord for me or my family.”

The timing of Narcissa’s grand feat of devotion didn’t sit right with Hermione but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why. Malfoy was sent into the field the moment he returned from Hogwarts.

And not a month before…

Something happened back then, something which she definitely shouldn’t have this much trouble remembering.

Harry leaned in his chair and crossed his arms. “Okay, so we know why you’ve tucked tail. What I don’t understand is why we should care about any of it. You lot are set to be the first pure-blooded beggars in Britain at best, Voldemort’s skin rug at worst. Great, how awful. I don’t see how it’s our business.”

The smile Narcissa gave him was outright nasty. “Oh, but it is your business, Mr. Potter. There are many reasons why the Dark Lord is less than appreciative of my skills, one of them being I used those skills to outsmart him.” Lost in thought, she glanced at the table top. “I’ve had little contact with my husband since he was rescued from Azkaban and sent into battle. But I do know he used to be rather uncritical when it came to the idea of us earning the Dark Lord’s favour. He believed that if we proved ourselves indispensable, we’d enjoy the same position as during the first war. I never wholly shared his optimism. And after the Dark Lord made no attempt at breaking Lucius out, and then sent Draco to die trying to kill Dumbledore, it became obvious we’d need to be indispensable in a literal sense if we were to survive.”

Hermione didn’t miss how Harry’s shoulders stiffened the second Dumbledore’s murder was mentioned, thrown out there with no weight to the words whatsoever, a piece of old news.

“This might surprise you but we don’t enjoy listening to you drone on nowhere near as much as you enjoy listening to yourself,” he snapped. “Spill it already.”

Head down, Narcissa concluded, “The one and only thing the Dark Lord needs the Malfoys for is money. So I made sure he couldn’t get the money without suffering the Malfoys.”

“How?” Hermione asked but Narcissa once again appeared unwilling to acknowledge she was in the room.

Harry drummed his fingers on the crook of his elbow. “She asked you a question.”

Narcissa’s gaze flitted between them, settling on Harry. “Back when I was allowed to leave the manor unsupervised, I dropped by the Gringotts one day, as well as the banks abroad which hold our wealth. I signed a set of very special, very binding contracts. They say our fortune not only can’t be handled by anyone but a living member of the Malfoy family, but he or she must be present in person and sign off every transfer in blood.”

She radiated self-satisfaction. “And the best part? The protection cannot be removed. It’s not a business arrangement between me and a bank clerk which can be amended if I change my mind. It’s a blood oath which binds the Malfoy dynasty as a whole— _forever_.”

Harry and Hermione exchanged a look.

“What’s so special about this?” Harry wondered. “Voldemort can order you to take out all your gold watches at once, sew them into his pillow and bam, you’re not needed anymore.”

Shaking a finger, Narcissa reached for her cup. “He specifically can’t do that. There’s a book-worth of complex rules I won’t bore you with, but to put it simply, they place limits on how much can be withdrawn, how often, and what to do with it. The point being, if the Dark Lord wants to keep the Order starved of new members, he needs a living person of the Malfoy bloodline.”

“Yeah, but…” The choice of words reminded Hermione of the unsightly consequences of her Apparition, and she began rubbing at the coppery flakes under her nose to get them off. “I mean, bloodlines tend to get fuzzy, don’t they? You yourself aren’t _really_ a Malfoy, only married to him, and yet the spell treats you as one. So who says your sister doesn’t count? Or that You-Know-Who can’t make himself a couple to spare? Rename a few flunkeys who’d be more obedient than you?”

Narcissa took a sip of tea and placed her cup on the saucer, harder than necessary. “It doesn’t matter whom I or you or the Dark Lord considers to be a Malfoy. It matters whom the _manor_ counts as one. What I did with our accounts is just a more involved version of the magic which’s been brimming in the manor’s walls for centuries. The house knows, and the vaults do too. You can’t fake your way around it.”

She leaned forward, not placing her elbows on the table. “Trust me, the Dark Lord has tried. And over and over again, he arrived at the same conclusion. Namely that to win the war, he must make sure at least one Malfoy stays away from it, protected to the greatest extent possible. Admittedly, I used to hope he’d see reason and have Lucius and Draco join me in my confinement but time has come for other arrangements.”

Smiling, she was the image of confidence. “So there you have it: make the measly effort of saving two people, and leave the Dark Lord penniless and facing the exact scenario he wants to avoid—a prolonged conflict with no end in sight where the only weapons at his disposal are terror and theft, making his subjects wonder if there isn’t something to the Order after all. A good enough reason to care about my money troubles?”

It was, Hermione concluded. Not only did Malfoy’s mum provide the answer to why exactly professor Moody had struggled so much with recruiting a British wizard or witch whose child didn’t force them to join, but she’d also delivered the solution.

And after today, You-Know-Who’s key to the Malfoy piggybank was something the Order desperately needed to steal.

Harry, however, gave a nonchalant shrug. “It’s a decent story, I suppose. If I wanted to pull wool over my targets’ eyes and lead them into a trap, I’d probably come up with it.” His face hardened. “But then again, I’d also realise that by my own admission I was supposed to be held prisoner by Voldemort and that it’s pretty suspicious I managed to get away under his watch. So I’d definitely hurry up and explain how the hell I did it.”

Narcissa addressed her tea. “I had help.”

“From who?” Hermione asked.

“No,” she countered, not looking at her. “You won’t learn this until after my husband and son are with me. It’s a part of your payment and my insurance you won’t bolt.”

Harry snorted. “What makes you believe we give enough of a damn to lift a finger for you?”

“Information. You might be noticing a trend, Mr. Potter. The person who broke me out of my house is interested in meeting you, and from what I understand has crucial intelligence.” She reclined and rested her hands in her lap. “One might say that getting the two of you in the same room together is a show of my gratitude.”

“Are they the ones who sent you?” Hermione guessed.

Narcissa shook her head. “They likely haven’t realised I left the hideout. But don’t worry, I know where they are and you’ll be seeing them soon.” Gazing into the distance, she gave a private smile. “Mention my son and they’re bound to help.”

Wondering how strained Harry’s patience must have been when _she_ felt like banging her fist on the table, Hermione fidgeted on her chair. “We’ll need you to give us a bit more before getting together with this person, not just an assurance we’ll one-hundred percent enjoy it.”

Narcissa examined her nails. “Of course. Lose the war if you want. See if I care once my family is ensconced in the Caribbean.”

It was quite clear Harry had enough. “You think very highly of yourself, don’t you?” he said, his voice unusually low.

“It’s good to know your value,” Narcissa allowed.

Pinning her with a steely gaze, he held himself tall. “None of what you told us justifies this kingly menu of rubbish you’ve ordered. Okay, getting your loser family to safety means Voldemort won’t have a pot to piss in next month. So what? If we do nothing and your hubby keeps signing the checks, he’ll run out of money eventually. Same result, less effort wasted on those who don’t deserve it.”

His mouth hardened. “You have no value to us.”

The kitchen was plunged into heavy silence and while the two sized each other up, Hermione held her breath, as if the tiniest of actions could tip the scales one way or the other.

Smile razor-sharp, Narcissa laid her hand on the table, next to her wand. “There was one other question you asked me,” she remarked, too calm. “Would you like to hear the answer, or should I leave and reveal your location to the first person I run into?”

Facial muscles barely twitching, Harry repeated in a flat voice, “How did you find us?”

Hermione realised she was staring at the woman’s pursed lips, waiting for the reply.

At last, Narcissa opened her mouth. “There’s a traitor in the Order,” she said, tone grave as though she’d been forced to part with a secret which would change the tide of the war.

Disappointment washing over her, Hermione watched as Harry uncrossed his hands and let them hang down his body, head falling back. “Jesus Christ,” he sighed, dropping the tough act. “Get lost.”

But before Hermione managed to figure out how to use the revelation to their advantage and make Narcissa give up something of actual merit, the woman added, eyes shining with vicious enjoyment, “Not impressed? Well listen to this. _I_ am the one they’ve been reporting to.”

If a niffler had decided to sniff around for a trinket to nick, the sound would have reverberated in the room as loudly as a mandrake’s shrill.

For a second, Harry’s gaze registered the same shock Hermione felt, but soon enough he slapped his palms on the table.

“Their name,” he spat. “Now.”

Narcissa laughed. “Remember the person who broke me out? The same rules and conditions apply. I’m not telling you, not until after Draco and Lucius are safe. Which is why all soldiers will be run by me before they learn what they’re about to do. I’m not risking the mission leaking to the informant, let alone it being assigned to them by accident.”

“But,” Hermione spoke without realising it, “what does talking to the traitor have to do with you finding us?”

Narcissa turned to her, disbelief etched in her face. “Merlin, Miss Granger, do take another sip of the Drought, will you? Who do you think told me where you were, a tooth fairy?”

“N-no, what I mean…” Hermione stammered before stopping herself.

What _did_ she mean?

Unlike the last time, there hadn’t been many who were entrusted with the information about their location. It was on the need-to-know basis, and those involved were regularly vetted to ensure nobody as much as hinted at where the Order’s greatest hope was hiding.

Hermione ran down the list. Moody, Ron, and Lupin, of course; to provide a smooth supply of food, books, and potions ingredients, Molly and the house elves, except Winky; Ginny and Arthur, to stave off the depressive funk both Ron and Harry had been prone to; Neville, a reminder of the times when he led Dumbledore’s army; Cho, and Lavender as his second- and third- in command, having each joined the Order after leaving Hogwarts; Kingsley as the chief Auror; and Tonks as a measure of last resort should the other options fail and she’d have to leave little Teddy with her mum to come and get their butts to safety.

If there was one thing Hermione was willing to stake her life on, it was that none of them would talk. None of them would give Harry up. None of them would betray him.

And yet someone had.

But Harry seemed to be concerned with more immediate matters. “Why should we believe you’re not pulling our leg?” he spat. “You waltz in, claiming to work with the same person the Order’s been hunting for the past year, and what, we’re supposed to take your word for it?” He threw his hands up. “Some details would be nice. Like when did they first come into contact with you and why? _How_? How do they work? How do they take their tea? I dunno, something other than ‘I’m telling the truth, scout’s honour.’”

Narcissa tapped on the edge of her cup before answering. “They didn’t first come into contact with me. They came into contact with my sister. She’s the one the informant was originally bound to, until the spell was replicated a year ago. Bella was convinced that if I’d do a good job of handling them, it’d put me in the Dark Lord’s good graces. Obviously, this didn’t happen. Nor did I succeed in removing my Henwas once I escaped, as the informant’s visit proved earlier today.” She shrugged. “To be honest, they were aware they shouldn’t be meeting up with _me_ , judging from their surprise at the place and their hasty attempt at Disapparition.”

“And pray tell, where was the mole trying to Disapparate from?” Harry prodded innocently.

“Cokeworth,” she answered without thinking, growing pink the moment she saw him smirk at her slip-up. “I suppose they wanted to Apparate to a master and the spell took them to whichever one was closer, not to the one they were allowed to see,” she added hastily. “After all, having multiple masters is the exact opposite of what the bond is meant to achieve so it wouldn’t surprise me if things got… messy after I left.”

“Bond?” Hermione asked, not understanding a word the woman was saying. “What bond?”

Narcissa rolled her eyes. “The Henwas Ring, of course.”

Harry and Hermione exchanged a look.

“Yeah, we have no idea what that is,” he said.

Groaning, Narcissa let her head fall in her hands. “Merlin, what do they teach y… Henwas _,_ a Henwas Ring, it’s a blood curse invented by a cuckold who refused to stay in the dark about his wife’s whereabouts. Not only does the spell allow the witch or wizard under its power to Apparate to their master anywhere, anytime, without having any knowledge of the destination, but the master can do the same. The person under the spell also becomes much more susceptible to Legilimency and mind control. Lying to the caster is borderline impossible and there can be no question of having free will. Either the wearer refrains from doing anything which conflicts with the master’s wishes and comes to them the moment they’re summoned, or they’ll suffer from constant, excruciating pain.” She took a deep breath. “Simply put, being under the ring’s pull makes the informant little more than a slave.”

“Jesus,” Harry whistled. “Who would go through with that?”

Narcissa gave a noncommittal shrug. “A person determined to see the war come to an end.”

“Sounds like you sympathise with them,” Hermione blurted out.

Looking up, Narcissa fixed her with a long gaze. “Very,” she said quietly.

“Wait a minute.” Harry sat up straighter, voice full of alarm. “You said if you make this ring, the wearer can Apparate to wherever you are. And that you didn’t remove _yours_.” When Narcissa nodded, he clenched his teeth. “So if someone, let’s say, I dunno, your crazy psycho of a sister, if this someone forces the traitor to Apparate and find you, we’ll have ourselves a pretty wild tea party in about five minutes?”

Smiling sweetly, Narcissa gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Mister Potter, if I were intellectually challenged, didn’t realise the obvious threat, and didn’t take precautions, you’d indeed be in considerable danger. Lucky for you, I’m not intellectually challenged. I’m what you might call my own unplottable island as of about four hours ago.” She nodded in Hermione’s direction. “The informant tries what you suggested, they end up like Miss Granger over there.”

Harry reclined in his chair and crossed his arms. “Okay, good news at last. I still don’t get how the traitor managed to mess with Fidelius,” he said, slipping into a petulant tone. “I thought it was supposed to be the best security magic can provide, not something easier to crack than the locks on Arthur’s car.”

Hermione frowned and took a swig of the Invigoration Drought.

Harry’d already learned from professor Lupin that none of their security measures were in place any longer and just had it explained how Malfoy’s mum managed to learn where the two of them were. And while he sometimes could be slow on the uptake, it didn’t make sense for him to be confused by an explanation she herself could follow despite her state.

Something was escaping her.

As soon as the potion hit her throat, she froze, realising what it was.

“Your recent protection may have been stronger than the one which failed you in North Devon, but when Alastor Moody died, it died with him,” Narcissa said and Hermione gaped at her, listening as her suspicions were being confirmed. “Moody’s Unbreakable Vows broke down and all Secondary Keepers who knew about this charming abode of yours became Primary Keepers and gained the freedom to act as such.”

“How do we know the traitor hasn’t made a run for it?” Harry frowned, clearly not comprehending what Narcissa Malfoy revealed to them. “I mean, if I were the one doing this and assumed the war was going to end tonight because I ratted me out, you couldn’t pay me to be anywhere near the Order.”

“You’re not appreciating the power of Henwas, Mister Potter, the type of relationship it creates. If you’re put under the curse, your master finds a place in your mind, in your heart, in your _soul_ —forever. You don’t perceive your own interests or recognise that there might be a difference between what you want and what the master wants. Because the only thing you _do_ want is to please them. I can’t imagine the circumstances it’d take for you to cast the ring off, how extraordinary a support system you’d need to have, how you could even have one—because if there’s something Henwas is designed to do, it’s to cut you off from everyone in your life, to make you believe no one but your master cares about you.”

“How does this ans—“

“If you’re under the spell and I assure you I’m on the Dark Lord’s side despite everything suggesting otherwise,” Narcissa cut in, “you won’t doubt me. If I remind you that you have gotten in touch with my sister, you will instantly remember doing so and won’t feel the need to seek her out. If I tell you to disregard your fears and go to the Order, you will.” She wriggled on her chair and for a moment, Hermione thought she was going to pat herself on the back. “So if you’re inclined to fret, don’t. The traitor considers their part today to be done and is staying put.”

Breaking out in a cold sweat, Hermione gaped at her, wondering how she could do what she did and look straight at her victims, explaining the excruciating minutia of the abuse she committed, acting as if nothing had happened.

As if there never had been a May evening when she almost had them killed.

“Oh my God. It was you,” Hermione breathed. “A year ago in North Devon. It was you. You brought the Death Eaters down on us.”

Harry’s mouth fell open as he whipped around to face her and then stared at Narcissa, waiting for a response. The woman’s posture stiffened but she didn’t say a word to deny the accusation.

Hermione put her head in her palms, searching for an explanation and coming up short. “We cast every protective spell imaginable, had every contingency covered. Christ, we had the Fidelius Charm.” She dropped her hands on the table and glanced up at the woman who refused to acknowledge her or Harry. “How?”

Narcissa remained quiet for a good long while. “As a Secondary Keeper, the informant couldn’t come and disclose where you were,” she said finally, her words careful and measured. “It wasn’t their secret to reveal. But if there’s a loophole, one can learn enough to work with.”

Blinking hard, Harry recovered from his shock. “There wasn’t a loophole. It’s like Hermione said. We had everything covered, thought everything through. No way anyone could have found out about that house.”

“Think, Mr. Potter,” Narcissa bit out. “Was the existence of the house secret, or the fact you were living in it?”

Hermione found herself turning to Harry, and saw his face darken with the same realisation which made her breath shorten and tiny sparks dance in front of her.

Of course it had been the latter.

Unprompted, Narcissa went on, churning out sentences through clenched teeth without pausing, like she was hoping the quicker it was out in the open, the less havoc it’d wreak. “When the informant contacted me last May, they made a strange request—that I hide myself under the Disillusionment Charm, Obliviate them so that they’d forget about our conversation, and then hold onto them while they Apparated, once they’d read their task list and remember to do so. We landed in front of a house. The traitor proceeded to go inside and have a talk with themselves in an empty room, if one can call muffled static a talk. No names were mentioned and nothing in the house suggested anyone lived in it. But there was a single reason why I’d ever be brought there.”

She took a deep breath and looked them in the eye, strangely defiant. “The Fidelius Charm can turn you invisible, make every sign of your existence vanish in thin air, even transform your home into origami and hide it before your eyes. But it won’t help you if someone decides to try their luck by casting Freezing or Binding Charms in every direction. And that’s all those Death Eaters had to do.”

Thinking back to who visited them that day, Hermione was assaulted by a face after face after face of those who made themselves regular guests at the house. Despite professor Moody’s protests, half the army had a reason to know about the location. Shoot, they themselves told every Order member who might find the information the least bit useful; a part of Harry’s strategy to make soldiers drop by and share the latest news, hopefully helping with the Horcrux hunt. People were constantly coming and going, bringing news of missions past and future, sharing the latest gossip about what might be going on in You-Know-Who’s camp, or hanging around. Everybody treated the North Devon outpost as little more than another base, and the trio did their best to support the notion, painting themselves as regular members of the Order to divert attention from the mission which no one could under any circumstances discover.

There was no way to sift through the visitors and snatch the one who turned on them, and when Hermione tried, all she managed to focus on were those three who laid their lives down for them.

“Why didn’t they do it again?” she heard herself ask in a hollow tone. “The traitor, I mean. Why didn’t they sell us out again? Why did they wait until tonight?” For a moment, she hoped against hope they changed their mind, got a conscience, decided enough was enough.

But that wasn’t true, was it? After all, if they had, she wouldn’t be sitting opposite one dreadful excuse for a person, would she?

“Because when Alastor Moody strengthened the new Fidelius Charm with Unbreakable Vows, he made it impossible for the keepers to infringe on your protection, directly or indirectly,” Narcissa replied. “They’d die before managing to reveal anything. And at any rate, what would have been the point? The indirect method failed once before.”

“People died that night,” Harry snarled, his voice steeped in disgust. “Good people, people someone as vile as you will never hold a candle to.”

Narcissa’s head whipped up and she pierced him with a cold glare. “Someone always dies, Mr. Potter. I’m not going to justify myself to you for doing what I’d do a thousand times over if I still believed it’d help my family. You may matter to the Dark Lord or the Order of the Phoenix, but make no mistake, you don’t matter to me.”

She glanced at Hermione and back. “Our interests coincide at this point in time, and we’ll part ways the moment this stops being true. That’s it. You don’t have to like it but please, exercise the modicum of foresight needed to understand how much you’ll be benefitting from the arrangement I’m proposing.”

Hermione stole a glimpse of Harry, and when he sighed, she knew he was thinking the same thing.

As distasteful as they found it, although the idea of Narcissa Malfoy being anywhere nearby made their skin crawl, they didn’t have a choice.

Seeing that they’ve come to the desired conclusion, Narcissa slapped her palms on the table and exclaimed, “So, if you’re done playing the Aurors, how about we get started? Lucius and Draco aren’t going to extract themselves.”

_O-oh. Oh!_

Hermione straightened up. “I don’t think we have to worry about Ma— err, Draco. At least not in that sen—”

“Oh, we do need to worry about him,” Narcissa jumped in. “Lucius has given a lot to the Dark Lord over the years, but is a reasonable man. He’ll see sense. Draco, on the other hand…”

Her tone became much more soft and distant, hesitant almost, as if summarising the immense depths of her baby’s soul was a task too difficult to undertake.

“He’s at the tender age when ideals burn bright, are worth dying for. And his letters, Merlin, the letters. They were filled with so much conviction the Dark Lord considered taking him out of school before he finished his education.”

Hermione scrunched her nose. “Letters? What letters?”

“The ones he was owling from Hogwarts, of course! My husband himself didn’t show this much enthusiasm for the cause as a student. You see, Draco came home a bit shaken after the Dumbledore mission but it soon became obvious it was because he saw himself as a failure.” Her voice was tighter and tighter with each word. “Poor boy was very invested in the task, saw it as a great honour. I couldn’t steer him away from it. And after Severus fulfilled it instead, he wrote about nothing but earning the Dark Lord’s approval.” She wrung her hands, whispering. “I fear my son won’t abandon him unless forced, and even then won’t forgive me easily.”

Hermione gaped at her, overcome with admiration and not a small amount of pity at how well Malfoy had hidden his true thoughts and feelings from everyone around him, up to and including his fussing mother. Clearly, when it came to making sure nobody glimpsed the slightest hint of doubt from his writing, everything had to be laid aside, even maintaining an honest relationship with someone who was more than willing to watch the world burn on his behalf.

Harry, meanwhile, was barely keeping it together, judging from the strangled sound which escaped his mouth. “So let me get this straight. You believe Malfoy, not your husband but _Malfoy_ , he’ll be the one giving us trouble because his principles are that blind and strong?”

Narcissa’s eyebrows knitted and she nodded.

Doubling up, Harry pressed his hands against his stomach and burst into a hysterical laughter. “Oh, this is too good,” he forced out between fits, wiping his tears away.

Uncomprehending, Narcissa glanced at Hermione. “I don’t—”

“Malfoy came to us last September, asking for pretty much the same thing you did,” Hermione blurted out. “He’s been spying for the Order ever since.”

It was like watching a living person succumb to a curse and freeze into a portrait of horror, what with Narcissa’s features stiffening and her complexion turning sickly white.

“It’s not going so well,” Harry shrugged, giggling as though he’d heard a fantastic joke.

Hermione gestured angrily to shut him up. “He asked for help tonight, right before you arrived. We’ve been using this to communicate.” Opening her palm, she slammed the enchanted galleon on the table. “To tell each other the time and place we’ll be meeting next. His coin has a tracking charm on it so that I could check up on him. But he must be at a protected location because when I tried Apparating to where he was it threw me back. The message on the coin? I sent it immediately after I returned, wanted to know where he was, but he hasn’t responded.” She glanced at her wrist watch. “That was about an hour ago.”

Baring her teeth, Narcissa snarled with so much venom she could spit it like a cobra were she so inclined. “And it didn’t occur to you to mention this, you stupid litt—”

The laughter died down, as if it had been a sitcom airing on a TV set someone had switched off. “I dare you to finish the sentence,” Harry growled, eyeing Narcissa like she was a piece of garbage. “I bloody dare you.”

Paying him no heed, Narcissa rose from her chair, a snake uncoiling. “Where is he?” she asked Hermione, her eyes the size of pinheads.

“I don’t know.” Hermione shook her head, tingles running all over her skin.

Suddenly, the wand which had been lying on the table was gone. “Where-is-my-son?” Narcissa gritted out, grasping the wand so tightly her knuckles turned white, but not pointing it at either of them.

“I don’t know!” Hermione cried out in alarm, and as both she and Harry scrambled to their feet, she heard her own wand clatter down to the floor, along with her chair. “It’s not exactly easy to tell what’s going on around you when you’re Apparating, is it?”

“Well think, for Merlin’s sakes!” Narcissa snapped. “Did you see something, hear something? Notice anything that stood out?”

Taking a step back and raising her hand to prevent the woman from attacking, Hermione racked her brain for the mess of blurs she saw. “There was a… house. Yes, a house. With windows. Lots of windows, very tall, very… glassy.”

“Well that narrows it down, doesn’t it?” Harry said, but Narcissa regarded her with rapt attention.

“Oh, and something else’” Hermione exclaimed, remembering. “A lot of white and feathers, lots of feathers. Wings, maybe.” Recognising what it was she crashed into, she made a wild gesture, giddy with satisfaction. “Birds! The house was surrounded with white birds!”

Narcissa nodded. “He’s at the manor,” she said matter-of-factly.

A few feet away from them, Harry froze.

Hermione frowned. “And you know that for sure.”

“Malfoy Manor is famous for two things,” Narcissa said. “One, the fact that it’s more glass than wall, and two, its flock of albino peacocks. So yes, Miss Granger, I’m positive.” She pointed at the last sip of the Invigoration Drought which remained in the flask on the table. “Finish the bottle and let’s go. You need to be fresh for this.”

Hermione reached for the Drought and knocked it back. As soon as the liquid touched her tongue, a million light bulbs lit up inside her brain, making her feel ready to take on anything and anyone.

A flat voice cut through the haze of invincibility and determination.

“No.”

Hermione turned around and saw Harry shake his head, as pale as Narcissa had been a few minutes ago. “This is no longer about finding your cowardly bum the best chair to sit in. It’s about marching into Voldemort’s lair and getting ourselves killed. There’s no way we’re coming out on top, and you know it.”

He jabbed a finger at Narcissa. “For all we know, you might have planned this. Hell, maybe Malfoy’s in on it as well and his spying act’s only ever been that. Voldemort might have sent you to tell us whatever pile of rubbish he thought I needed to hear in order to go to him. This is what I’m known for, isn’t it? Losing my cool and charging in to protect my friends? Well, I have news for you.” He took a step forward and spat, his face a study in disgust, “Malfoy’s not my friend. He’s _your_ kid, and just as you don’t give a crap about me, we don’t give a crap about him. You save the brat. Like hell we’re dying for him.”

The wand was pointed at his chest before Hermione managed to get a word in edgewise. “You have two options, Mr. Potter,” Narcissa said, her voice cracking. “Either go with me, or I’m dragging you to the Dark Lord and buying my son’s life with yours. It’s all the same to me.”

The air was pierced with a sound of swooshing and Harry was aiming his own wand at Narcissa’s throat. “Yeah, I’d like to see you try,” he sneered, radiating pride at his superior speed. “Or do housewives take lessons in kidnapping?”

Hermione found herself stepping between the two. “Everybody calm down,” she exclaimed, raising her arms and addressing Narcissa. “We’re going, just… just give us a second, okay?”

“A second?” she said incredulously. “We’ve lost an hour, and you want to waste more time by bickering about whether my son’s worth saving?”

“We’re going! I swear, look!” Hermione held up two fingers and placed the other hand on her heart. “A special Muggle promise, their own Unbreakable Vow. Just wait outside, okay? We’ll be with you in a minute. You have my word.”

Silence descended on the room as Narcissa pursed her lips and stared at Hermione, breathing through her nostrils and ready to pounce. And then, incredibly, she turned on her heel and headed out of the kitchen, her measured pace and relaxed posture at odds with the clenched fists.

As soon as the main door down the hallway slammed shut, Harry faced Hermione. “We’re not doing this,” he whispered urgently.

“Get the cloak, yes, we are.” She dropped to her knees and reached beneath the table to fish out her wand. “The only question is what to do about the Horcrux. I don’t like the idea of bringing it to You-Know-Who on a silver platter, but leaving it behind when anyone can burst in would be worse. At least when you’re hidden and have it on y—”

Seizing her under the armpits, Harry pulled her up and spun her around so that she’d have to look at him. “We-are-not-doing-this,” he gritted out. “Grab what you need, and let’s get away before she comes back.”

She stared at him, not understanding. “But what else is there to do?”

“We cut our losses!” he pleaded. “Go to Lupin, get you treated, find the cup, and then make a speech in Malfoy’s memory after the war’s over! It’s more than the bastard deserves anyway.”

Pushing him away, she couldn’t suppress the smirk. “Oh, _now_ we’re going after the cup, are we?”

Throwing his hands up, he started pacing to and fro, a caged animal. “Merlin, this is mad, Hermione. It’s Malfoy’s mum we’re talking about! Remember her? Snotty as hell, screwed-up beliefs, helped Voldemort set up the ambush at the Department of Mysteries? Who knows what nest of vipers she’s leading us to!”

“So we’ll go get help like the last time!”

“Three people died last time! Moody died _today_ , Anthony, Podmore, Tonks’ dad, and however many Lupin forgot to mention! We’re not losing anyone else tonight,” he declared with an air of finality.

Hermione marched over and took his face between her palms. “Exactly,” she insisted, willing him to see. “You wouldn’t hesitate if it were Neville or Luna or Dean or anyone else. This is the same. You may not like it but Malfoy’s one of us. And bastard or not, we’re not losing him.”

Eyes flitting here and there, he reminded her of those moths darting into your room on summer evenings, their wings beating against the blinds as they searched for a way out.

The moment his shoulders sagged, Hermione knew she won.

“Goddamn it, Hermione.”


	13. Chapter 13

**10th of March, 1999**

“Absolutely not.”

“I know it’s dangerous, professor, but given our situation—”

“I’m well aware of the situation, Miss Granger, which is why you better keep quiet and listen when I’m telling you what you’re requesting cannot be done.” With her stiff posture and twitching hands, she resembled a cat about to have a hissy fit. “I understand that all things considered you may not be up-to-date on how things are at the castle, so let me be brief. The amount of hoops I had to jump through to meet with you tonight is, quite frankly, preposterous. Getting you _in_ , though, especially now? This is a different matter altogether. There is no version of events, I repeat, _none_ where Mister Potter isn’t caught. I trust there’s no need for me to explain what disaster _that_ would entail. And if we by some miracle succeeded, however impossible the idea is, someone would talk. Someone always talks. It wouldn’t be me, or you, or Mister Potter who’d pay the price. It’d be the students, and I won’t expose them to that risk. The students, they’re—“

“Hostages. I know.”

There was no other way to put it. Re-educating young wizards in You-Know-Who’s vision may have been the stated goal when compulsory Hogwarts education became enacted, but one of the policy’s benefits was that having their own children at You-Know-Who’s mercy made even the most torn fence-sitters behave. Those like the Creevey brothers had the good sense never to return. Others, like Ginny or Lavender, had to be kidnapped from the castle once the full extent of their families’ involvement with the Order came to light. And the rest…

“Professor Snape has taken radical steps to ensure there will be no further extractions. The corridors are patrolled nonstop, there are eyes everywhere. Aberforth was driven away and some of the security measures are mystery even to me. What you’re proposing isn’t a childhood adventure with a comfortable level of danger where the only risk is losing house points and wasting a Sunday afternoon over extra homework. Failure is all but certain and the consequences fatal, either for you, or for the children.” Her shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry, Hermione, but the answer is no.”

She knew it was going to turn out this way; how could it not? And yet, pretending it was possible felt close to taking a break. The inevitable screaming match had been put on hold and hope hugged the cottage, a warm blanket of delusion.

And now, with reality crashing down on her, the same hope wheezed out like air from a punctured balloon.

“But I might be able to bring what you need to you.”

Hermione chuckled unhappily. “Do you happen to be a Parselmouth, professor?”

“Oh… I see.”

Awkward silence ensued.

“Maybe we could make arrangements over the holidays, when the students are home…” Hermione stammered. “I can’t stress how… I mean, sooner or later, Harry will have to come. The victory…”

Oh, Merlin, what was the point? There was no way they’d succeed and no way he’d let himself be steered in the other direction, and she didn’t have the energy to fight anymore. All she had done for the past year was run at a top speed to stay put, hold on in order not to fall from the wall which couldn’t be breached, and she was tired, so, so tired…

The touch of cold hands caught her off guard. Looking up, she was taken aback by the concern marring the professor’s features.

“Before you leave, Hermione, you need to hear something.” She paused. “I was born when the world went utterly insane. Having grown up watching it so consumed, and then learning the same insanity had ravaged _our_ world, I decided to make sure it’d never come back. More often than not, it was like trying to hold water between my fingers. Every day, I woke up wondering if there’d be another setback, another nudge towards the pit. Each success we snatched was laughable, any progress shaky when compared to the darkness looming on the horizon.” Her eyes lowered to the ground. “I’ve seen the madness return once before and now it’s back. There are moments when I ask myself if all that effort was worth it, if stepping aside and letting our society eat itself alive wouldn’t have been a better use of my time.”

She clasped Hermione’s shoulder and fixed her with a steely gaze. “I used to stand where you stand, and so please, if you decide to ignore the rest of what I taught you, remember this—never give up. Whatever happens, it won’t change the fact that the person staring at you from the mirror needs to be someone you can live with. They can’t have the satisfaction of breaking you. Because if they do, if you give them _that_ , you’ll have lost regardless of how this war turns out.”


	14. Chapter 14

**7th of April, 1999**

When Hermione switched the lights off and stepped outside into the brisk night, she found Narcissa Malfoy waiting, wound up tight as a spring, watching the doorway with the single-minded focus of a hungry bloodhound.

“A man of his word, isn’t he?” the woman spat as soon as it became clear nobody else was leaving the house.

Hermione shook her head, weary and not giving much of a damn about what Narcissa made of it. “Don’t worry about him. So.” She linked her fingers, checking she’d left enough space behind. “How are we going to do this?”

Narcissa gestured towards the cottage, looking straight past her. “He said he’d come, gave me a promise, and now when he’s broken it and left me to save my son alone you expec—”

“ _I_ gave you a promise,” Hermione interrupted. “And yes, I expect.”

Throwing her hands up, Narcissa chuckled humourlessly. “Well it’s not like I wanted to storm the front gate.” Gazing into the empty forest, she paused before continuing. “There’s a secret entrance.”

“Of course there is,” Hermione said, playing for time. “Explain.”

Narcissa cast her a look. “A secret entrance, a passage that’s hidden, out of view, clandestine, _a secret entrance_ , Merlin’s beard, what don’t you understand?” The usual note of conceit was creeping into her voice. “I haven’t realised such a simple phrase might be perceived as some kind of impenetrable wizarding slang.”

“I agreed to help you, not to march in blind and beaming with hope it’s going to turn out fine,” Hermione shrugged, stomach coming alive with butterflies when she wondered what the dickens was taking Harry so long. “Connect those dots for me.”

Muttering what Hermione figured she wouldn’t enjoy hearing anyway, Narcissa pinched the bridge of her nose. “The manor wasn’t bestowed on us by a higher power. When the Malfoys came to Britain, those lands belonged to local houses, some of them Muggles, others wizards, none too happy with losing what used to be theirs, a few more than eager to take it back. So our ancestors placed a blood curse on every inch of those lands, to make sure no one who stole them could hold onto them for long.”

“Why’s the passage there?” Hermione tapped her foot, taking care to make it sound as loud as possible.

“Why do you think?” Narcissa snapped. “Anti-apparition spells weren’t invented yesterday, you know? And while dying in the knowledge your enemies are going to suffer a terrible fate may not be the worst way to go, I’d say getting away and actually watching it unfold is the preferable optio—”

Hermione felt a sharp tug at the back of her shirt.

“Yes, yes,” she jumped in. “I assume it’s a fascinating story. You can tell me all about it once Malfoy’s fine and well and we move somewhere with hot chocolate in it.” Tilting her head, Hermione didn’t bother to suppress the mockery in her tone. “Or do you no longer care?”

She reached out, raising her eyebrows when the woman stood there, watching the extended hand as though she were offered an exotic, unappealing meal.

_Say it,_ Hermione thought. _I dare you._

But instead of spewing the torrent of insults she expected, Narcissa strode over, grabbed her by the elbow, and then Hermione was crushed between two bodies, her entrails pushing up her throat as they careered through space.

When her feet hit soft forest floor, she didn’t even try to regain balance; her body was gripped by the swirl of Apparition and so was every drop of the Invigoration Drought it failed to digest, sloshing in her stomach like a sea of poison.

“ _Merlin!_ ”

To her credit, Narcissa didn’t say anything else as Hermione shoved her aside and fell on her hands and knees, retching and watching the precious liquid burst out of her mouth as if shot from a hose, the pounding headache from before returning immediately.

“I should…” she forced out in between gasps, but her gullet had a mind of its own, rolling and contracting in an endless surf of heaving. “I should’ve kept….”

“No, it wouldn’t have helped,” an impatient voice spoke behind her. “Apparating was going to hurt you regardless, Draught or not. You’d have more likely passed out if you hadn’t taken it than had the strength to swallow a single sip.”

As Hermione spat a string of saliva, she supposed there was merit to Narcissa’s words; it was called magic, not miracle-working. You couldn’t pile fresh abuse on and on and expect to walk it off just because you did the equivalent of putting a paper towel on a bucket of sewage. If you were careful, the towel might manage to stay in place, but rock the bucket too hard and it’s bound to fall in.

The headless snake in her chest stopped trashing and she scrambled to her feet, weak as a kitten and her brain about to drown in molasses.

“Can you walk?” came the voice, accompanied by a light touch on the small of her back, so gentle it couldn’t be more at odds with the irritation dripping from the question.

“I’m fine,” Hermione whispered, not sure whom she was trying to convince. Turning, she saw Narcissa stand a good ten feet away from her. “I’m fine.”

“Then you have enough in your blood not to be a burden.” Setting off, Narcissa motioned for Hermione to follow. “Let’s go. You’ve delayed me enough as it is.”

Breathing in the crisp air, Hermione took a few clumsy steps, a baby giant seconds away from collapsing whenever her foot stomped on the ground.

_You’re going to fight for your life like this._

A jolt of fear pierced her heart, grasping it in an icy palm, and beads of cold sweat broke all over her skin as the ground beneath her feet melted in a grainy mesh of black and blue.

_Hold it together, dammit_. Clutching her wand, she made herself stagger in Narcissa’s direction. _Who knows? If you keep at this, you might actually get to drown You-Know-Who in your own puke._ Chasing the thought away, Hermione looked up and blinked, the pounding in her head growing unbearable the moment a ray of light stabbed her in the eyes.

They were in a forest, one flooded with blades of moonlight streaming between the treetops which peppered the sky like black lace. The natter and chirp and gibber of crickets was a relentless assault until it made room for the screeching of owls which in turn howled down the clangour of branches, smashing into one another in the wheezy breeze. The wet leaves beneath her feet stank of rot and mildew, and when Hermione wrenched her chin up and saw a mound rising from the spongy earth, impossibly high and plonked directly in front of her like a scoop of ice cream, she almost burst into tears.

There was no house or white peacocks anywhere.

“We’re here.”

Yanked out of her moment of despair, she tore her eyes away from what might as well have been the tallest mountain on earth, and saw Narcissa Malfoy at its foot, her silhouette dark against the moonlight. For a moment, it seemed she was holding two wands instead of one, but then the wand in her right hand gleamed and Hermione saw it was a knife. Baring her forearm, Narcissa started reciting words Hermione didn’t understand, and with a single swish brought the knife down, running it against the pale skin. When the dark liquid began dribbling, syrupy-thick, Hermione followed its course to where it splashed against the forest floor, and her chest clenched in horror.

The ground was moving.

Rising and falling, it looked as though a creature was trapped underneath, stretching and sighing, running its palms against the leafy skin, awakening from its slumber to rise up and do its mistress’ bidding.

Alarmed, she glanced up and saw that far from slowing down, the dribble of blood flowing from Narcissa’s wound thickened into a stream, pouring into the soil without a sound, as if lapped up by a gaping mouth.

“Careful, you’re going to—!”

The words died in her throat as she realised what she was staring at.

The steady pillar connecting Narcissa Malfoy to the hillside beneath her feet wasn’t blood. It was a tangle of twigs, a braid winding up, the motion betrayed be the faintest rustle of leaves. And out of the crooked snarl, fingers were poking out to wrap themselves around the woman’s forearm.

The moment Hermione made the shape out, it lost its edges and wormed itself into Narcissa’s wound, an ink blot spilt on thirsty parchment, creeping up her arm, a veiny seedling infecting the skin, giving it the marbled appearance of decomposition. But when the woman opened her mouth in a groan of pain, making Hermione wonder if the muck would crawl _out_ , the sludgy rivulets paled into snow white and sparkled silver, shining brighter and brighter until all Hermione saw was the glow of Narcissa Malfoy, burned on her retinas like a Veela.

It was over before she managed to look away. The light went out as though a switch flicked somewhere, and night enveloped the forest, a black curtain thick and heavy over her eyes. Hermione heard Narcissa moan and slump to the ground more than she saw it, what with the blazing silhouette still nestled in the centre of her vision. What she did distinguish, though, was a large hole in the side of the hill, splitting the earth like a bite mark.

No, not a hole. An entrance.

“I told you the house knows.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes at Narcissa who was struggling to get up, free of her usual poise. “What would happen if someone else tried it?”

“They’d rot alive.” Narcissa shrugged and stumbled towards the entryway. “Now, unless you prefer to stand there and gawp, I suggest we get going.”

Hermione took a step when an idea cut through the mud in her brain. “Wait.” She stopped. “Why did you need help to escape if this was here?”

Narcissa leaned on the edge of the hole and showed Hermione her wand, lighting it with a wordless Lumos. “What, you think the Dark Lord allowed me to have _this_ on me?”

Watching her disappear inside, Hermione found herself give a nod of understanding. A witch without a wand might as well have her hands cut off. Especially one who never knew a life without magic.

She approached the entrance and peeked in. The silvery dot, bobbing up and down, was growing smaller with each second as Narcissa ran down a set of clay stairs, chased by a pool of light nowhere near big enough to reach Hermione and allow her to watch her own steps.

She considered her wand and then walked in blind, feeling the edge of the first stair with her foot. The Illumination Spell may have been year one material, but every speck of energy counted tonight and she couldn’t afford to waste it.

There was no way to tell how long she spent staggering down and stumbling in the dark, groping along the rooty walls of the passageway, following the fading dot and fighting the urge to throw up as the earthy smell clogged her throat. But when she thought she might have lost the light completely, it appeared, shoved into her face and hissing like a sputtering candle.

“ _For Merlin’s sakes!_ ”

Narcissa snatched her under the arm, fingers sinking into the soft flesh, and began marching her forward, paying no mind to the choked gasp Hermione gave as blood drained from her brain and the glow in front of her dissolved in a dancing net of grey. There was no oxygen in her tight lungs, nothing could be heard but the muffled breathing in her ears and the tripping of her feet, disconnected from her body, a pair of planks tangling somewhere below.

And still Narcissa dashed and rushed and dragged her along, driven by a singular purpose which allowed for no show of concern even if she felt any.

Finally, _finally_ , they stopped. The sharp fingers propping Hermione up disappeared and she collapsed against a damp wall of dirt in front of her, sliding down on the ground, not giving a toss about anything but the glorious tingle running all over her skin as she took a deep breath and sensed the static of her mind settle into something sane and barely awake.

She placed her palms on the soil by her sides, and with that firm contact she became grounded, connected to the earth which shared her every sigh of relief, every shake and prickle, rumbling and moving and sliding into a burning pit of heat.

_Wait…_

Against her better judgement, Hermione glanced up.

It was like gazing into the sun. Where a dead end cut off the corridor a second ago, a doorway was now open, a blazing rectangle of torch flames illuminating a stone room full of shelves and cupboards.

And from the ocean of scorching light, a man’s face was staring at her, his eyes registering the same shock which gripped Hermione’s guts.

Before either of them managed to move, a red streak whooshed past Hermione and the man fell to the ground, unconscious.

“Did you…?” a startled voice spoke above her.

She turned to Narcissa who was looking down at her in confusion, and saw her eyes widen as a second ribbon appeared out of thin air—the white flash of the Full Body-Bind Curse.

“W-what…?” Narcissa stammered, glancing from the man into the dark tunnel and back.

Hermione shook her head and crawled inside the cellar on all fours, avoiding the tied-up body on the floor. “I told you not to worry about him.” She grasped the upright of the nearest rack for support and sat up, reclining against the hard edge of a shelf.

A breath washed over her. “Are you okay?”

She opened her eyes but there was no one there. “As okay as I’m going to be. Just going to stretch my legs for a while, don’t worry.” A thought popped up in her mind. “Wait, do yo—?”

“I can’t sense him.”

She nodded, limbs sprawling out on the floor as if a chunk of concrete had been removed from them. That was the worst scenario taken care of. But if it wasn’t You-Know-Who who read Malfoy the riot act, who did?

“Where are the guards?”

No one answered the disembodied voice.

“Well?”

Narcissa turned away from the secret door which was rapidly closing, an innocuous stone wall replacing it. “O-oh. In the entrance hall, usually two or three. And one in the loggia.”

“Nobody in the garden?”

She shook her head. “That’s what the charmed fence is for, Mister Potter.”

“Okay.” A door in the corner opened. “I’m going to take a look around. Stay put until I come back.”

The door closed and Hermione wriggled, getting as comfortable as she could on the chilly floor. How long was it going to take Harry to clear the hallways? Fifteen minutes if he was careful, ten if he wasn’t. So about ten minutes for her to pull herself together, have a rest, and prepare for what was lying ahead.

But what was lying ahead? Harry’s scar didn’t flare up which meant You-Know-Who wasn’t in the manor. For the three of them, that was very very good. For Malfoy, it might just as well be very very bad. What if the reason why You-Know-Who wasn’t in the house was because he learned the truth about Malfoy and already did away with him? What if he dragged him to a prison somewhere, or worse?

_Calm down,_ she scolded herself. _Malfoy would have been questioned the first thing after the battle. But he didn’t make contact until this evening. So whatever happened, You-Know-Who probably had nothing to do with it. And whoever jumped Malfoy was one-hundred percent waiting for You-Know-Who to come back, to present the traitor personally and claim the reward for discovering him. So no worries, he’s alive and, erm, maybe not well, but definitely alive. Harry’s going to find him and everything’s going to be just fi—_

“Don’t patronize me.”

Hermione blinked and realised she’d been staring at Narcissa who was leaning against the shelving opposite, arms folded across her chest and giving her a look of unadulterated disgust.

_Christ, Hermione, you_ are _losing it, aren’t you?_

She gave a weak shrug. “I’m patronizing myself if anything. One gets the urge sometimes. To take themselves down a peg or two. Builds character. But to be honest, talking to myself was the best conversation I’ve had tod—“

“Why are you here?” Narcissa’s voice cut through the rambling.

Hermione rolled her eyes, pain flashing in her brain. “Blimey, so I’m a bit out of it. Give me a minute and I’ll—”

“No.” Narcissa’s eyes were the size of pinheads, bored into her with the intensity of an Auror interrogating a criminal. “Why are you here?”

Startled, Hermione gaped at her, suddenly aware of the tension crackling in the cellar, the air ready to give birth to an earthshattering revelation which would make the idea of a Muggle-born risking her life for a pureblood make sense.

When really, the explanation was the simplest in the world.

“We’re friends,” she said, as if asked what day it was. “I think. Didn’t used to be. Or maybe we did. I don’t know anymore.”

Narcissa nodded and glanced away without saying a word, her face shrouded in disinterest. But there was no mistaking the tightening of her fingers around her elbows.

“I helped him once. When they gave him the mission. He didn’t say what it was about but I could tell. That he needed help. Still does.” Hermione was surprised by how easily the words rolled off her tongue. But this wasn’t Harry. It wasn’t even Malfoy. This was Narcissa Malfoy, a woman she didn’t give two hoots about, someone whose sins were graver than hers yet who didn’t have the decency to care. Talking to her about Dumbledore didn’t feel like baring her soul, more like swapping war stories with somebody she’d never see again.

She stared at the woman for a while, hoping to get through, to make her understand the harm she’d done. “He’s been doing it for you, you know? Back then and now. All of it.”

Again, Narcissa gave a nod and stayed silent, gaze to the floor, lost in thought. Hermione leaned against the rack and stared at the door, careful not to put strain on her aching brain by looking around too much.

There was nothing to say.

“It’s Bella.”

Hermione turned to find Narcissa Malfoy scrutinizing her once more, but the resemblance to the grand inquisitor was gone.

“What?”

“The one who ‘jumped’ Draco as you put it,” the woman clarified, digging the tip of her shoe into a seam between floor tiles.

Hermione frowned. “How do you know?”

Narcissa shrugged. “I just do.”

“Why would she, though?” Hermione said. “He’s her nephew. I thought your family was pretty particular about this sort of thing.”

A solid minute passed before Narcissa answered. “Bella, she…” The words were measured and careful, dragged out. “You might say she suffers from divided loyalties. The Dark Lord, he was always the one who came first with her, even before Rodolphus. Sometimes, I wonder if her obsession with him doesn’t come before the cause itself. And while she attaches great importance to the _idea_ of blood ties, in the end there’s nothing and no one she’d allow to stand in the Dark Lord’s way.”

Hermione thought about it for a moment. “But you’re her sister.”

“Indeed,” Narcissa nodded gravely. “And I chose my husband and son over her.”

The words hung in the cellar, grim and final like a death sentence.

Putting it together, she heard herself ask, “So what, you’re going to storm out and fight her? Your own flesh and blood?”

“We’ve both made our choices, Miss Granger.” Narcissa’s features dripped exhaustion as she continued to hug herself. “We’ve made them a long time ago.”

A few minutes elapsed, silence filling the cellar like a toxic gas.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Narcissa declared out of nowhere, and if Hermione didn’t know better, she’d have sworn her voice sounded shaky.

She gave the woman a once-over, for the first time noticing her no-doubt expensive robe which clung to her figure. In that moment, it was so easy to look at her and see Malfoy as he used to be—a conceited bully who believed himself superior by virtue of his birth and wealth; a cowardly opportunist who’d throw others in danger’s way if it meant protecting his own bum; a sneering yes-man who thought nothing of outright stating those of “impure” blood were worse than mud beneath his feet.

The person his mother raised him to be.

“No,” Hermione confirmed, tired and a little sad. “It doesn’t.”

Steps rustled outside the cellar and Hermione jerked, pointing her wand at the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Narcissa do the same.

The knob rattled and the door opened, revealing nobody.

“I’ve found him.”

“Oh sweet Merlin,” Narcissa heaved a sigh, so unlike her usual composed self. “Where?”

“In the library. At least it looked like a library through the keyhole. Hard to tell, it was pretty dark inside. But I remember how to get back so I suppose it’s beside the point.”

“Is he all right?” Narcissa urged.

“He’s with your sister.”

Hermione found herself exchanging a look with Narcissa, the unspoken assumption clear to both.

“What about the guards?” Hermione said gingerly, getting up from the floor.

“I took care of those patrolling the hall and the one outside. But there are people in the other rooms, down here too. Who knows how many or what they’re doing but a slightest noise and they might pour out. We need to be quick. And more importantly we need to be quiet.”

“Very well,” Narcissa motioned, marching to the door. “Let’s go.”

“Erm, maybe I should be the one at the front? You know, since I’m invisible and all?”

“Then stop drawing this out and _go_!” Narcissa hissed.

Nothing happened for a few moments.

“Well? I’m outside. Are you coming, or not?”

Narcissa grabbed Hermione by the sleeve of her shirt and headed out of the cellar. “Merlin’s sakes.”

The basement hallway was a smooth tunnel of pale stone, curving around itself with no end in sight. It was lined with heavy wooden doors on one side and torch lit paintings on the other, depicting scenes of suffering and torture which made Hermione wonder how many of those hidden rooms contained supplies and how many something altogether different.

She and Narcissa shuffled to each bend, waiting for Harry to give the okay before turning it, until a short set of stairs appeared, rising to the exit.

“It’s up the double staircase and to the left, at the end of the gallery,” Harry’s voice whispered next to her ear as the door creaked open. “Remember—quick and quiet.”

They slid out and flattened themselves against one side of the grand staircase, so tall Hermione couldn’t see over the massive baluster railing. What she could make out was a majestic candle chandelier hovering up and down the two storey space, so intricate it appeared woven from glass and metal, its light bathing the white stone walls and high windows which opened to the expanse of the garden outside.

Not to mention the two bodies which lay crumpled by the main entrance.

“Merlin,” Narcissa snarled as the tip of her wand lit up with the flash of the Disillusionment Charm. “You just couldn’t conceal them, could you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought we were in a hurry. Why don’t we clear this vampire castle from attic to basement while we’re at it? No pressure. I’m sure your worthless excuse for a son can wait.”

“I’d stew in my inadequacy in silence if I were you, Mister P—“

“Both of you,” Hermione hissed. “Shut up.”

To her surprise, they did, and as they did, the ensuing silence was replaced by the sound of steps marching from the far end of the gallery above them, in the direction of the noticeably unguarded entrance hall.

_Okay. Here we go._

Hermione gripped her wand in her sweaty fingers, and just like that, the two guards were up, strolling around the hall as if expecting a hostile takeover any minute.

One could barely see the candlelight streaming through the illusion.

“Willows,” a voice above greeted. “Meliflua.”

The projections nodded in acknowledgement. One second later, a door up on the gallery slammed shut and the steps faded away. Hermione jerked her wand and the illusion disappeared, along with most of the vision in her right eye.

“Wow. Good thinking, Hermione.”

_Yeah. Any more of that good thinking and I’d have painted these walls yellow._

“I must concede it was somewhat inspired,” Narcissa said.

“Sure, I bet she was dying for your praise. How about we go?”

Considering the circumstances which included a non-negligible amount of buzzing in her ears and grey shapes dancing in front of her, Hermione was fairly certain the curse which escaped Narcissa’ lips was a figment of her imagination. What most assuredly wasn’t a figment of her imagination was the stabby sensation in her shoulder as the woman grasped her by the flannel shirt and dragged her out of their hidey-hole.

_Cut it out,_ Hermione thought, tongue heavy in her mouth. _I can walk on my own._

But as the three of them made a short work of the staircase, she was forced to admit this was far from the case. She could no longer pretend the pins and needles in her body were blood returning to her stiff limbs; the sensation was constant, growing stronger until it solidified and turned her feet into useless hunks of metal. When she grabbed for the railing to keep steady, her one working eye registered the motion after her fingers came into contact with the cold wood. And despite trying her damnedest to walk in a straight line, she kept bumping into Narcissa as if coming home from a booze-up.

“This is the room.”

Hermione had no idea when they made their way from the top of the staircase to the end of the gallery, but there they were—facing a sturdy pair of double wing doors bordered on both sides by two portraits of snoring wizards.

“Get ready. I’m going to count to thr—“

“Wait,” Hermione mumbled. “We can’t burst in. They’ll hear.”

“Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

“Let’s hear it.”

There was a pause. “You’re the plan.”

_Well, crap._

Nodding, Hermione gestured for the others to step closer. “Quick and quiet?”

“Quick and quiet.”

_Okay. Here goes nothing._

Raising two fingers, she drew a semicircle around the three of them and threw the imaginary line towards the door.

“ _Quietus Protean_.”

She stumbled and hit the wall with her back, surprised at how close it was. “There. Whatever happens inside stays inside.”

“Okay, on the count of three. Blast the door and go in. I’ll be covering you. Hermione, erm, you hold back, okay?”

Hermione nodded, though it felt more like her chin growing ten times in size and tumbling down her chest.

“Fine. One.”

Narcissa lifted her wand and Hermione pressed herself against the wall, her right cheek completely numb.

“Two.”

A peculiar light-headedness seized her as she stared the entrance down; a light-headedness which had nothing to do with the fact she was barely standing.

“Three.”

Narcissa’s hand whipped as if shot from a slingshot. _“BOMBARDA!”_

Later, much later, Hermione concluded it must have been the combination of battered senses and anxiousness which made her mind simultaneously fire up and slow down to the point of stopping, an old camera on the brink of breaking down, recording everything, producing an exquisitely detailed photograph whose subjects moved with the ease of a sloth drowning in a barrel of glue.

The door groaned and exploded out of its hinges, each splinter and speck of dust shaped perfectly as it floated in the air, not falling once past the doorway which framed the scene like a charmed painting. In the frame, a dark lair was gaping, centred with mathematical precision around a tall window at the opposite end, the blaze of moonlight pooling in a silver rectangle on the floor. And in the middle of the silvery ocean, a beast was crouching, a black mess of hair and skirts looking up from its prey—a lifeless sprawl of limbs, a splotch of ink seeping into the glowing boards.

In front of her, Narcissa Malfoy waved her arm in a circular motion which lasted an eternity, and a blood-red flash of light hurtled into the room, taking its sweet time to reach its goal. Next to Narcissa, a golden flare materialised out of nowhere, hanging suspended mid-air before it too began its sluggish journey to its target—the frozen face of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Only then came the swooshing, the blood and bone of battle, and once Hermione’s ears erupted with it, the spell was broken and things went to normal. The blasted door pieces shot forward and crashed straight into Bellatrix Lestrange who went down, a bag of twigs collapsing beneath the splintered wood and avoiding both charms by sheer coincidence. Just as the spells hit a reading table by the window, knocking it over, Narcissa Malfoy ran in, but not before Harry who tore the Invisibility Cloak off himself and roared incomprehensibly, the tip of his wand lighting up with a new charm.

Hermione stiffened.

It was the Killing Curse.

A foot behind him, Narcissa saw what he was about to do. A fraction of a second later, his wand leapt out of his hand and into Narcissa’s who immediately cut him off, shoving him in the chest and screaming uncontrollably.

Staggering past the two of them, Hermione wasn’t interested in their shouting match. She was interested in the lump on the floor behind them that somehow didn’t notice any of this.

Malfoy was lying spread-eagled on the wooden boards, head tilted to one side, eyes closed. His shirt was sticky and cold to the touch, his moonlit skin a fresh cadaver’s. There was no sign of injury but when Hermione knelt down next to him and shook him by the shoulder, he didn’t respond.

In fact, it didn’t look like he was breathing.

Something icy nestled behind her breastbone and she found herself gripping her wand, muttering a spell to make this disaster the slightest bit better.

“Rennervate.”

Malfoy’s eyes shot open, full of pain and desperation and something not altogether human, and as the last bits of strength evaporated from her pores like drops of water in the sun, Hermione knew with one-hundred percent certainty this had been a mistake.

_Crap, crap, crap, oh no, no, no, no, crap…_

The grey dots at the edge of her vision pulsated and ran wild, a swarm of spiders covering everything. Her thighs turned into dough and she collapsed, a puppet whose strings had been cut, her temple hitting Malfoy’s arm.

A sound rattled in her ear. “Granger,” Malfoy croaked, his voice a broken cacophony. “What are you…?”

Hermione blinked, the sea of grey briefly parting to reveal his pallid face, staring straight at her, inches away. “You called,” she forced out, the sentence heavy and cumbersome on her tongue.

And she was done. There was nothing left to do, nowhere left to run, only letting go and spinning out of control as her world shrunk to little more than the hardness of Malfoy’s arm under her temple, the sour smell of his sweat in her nostrils, the insistent prodding of words around her, piercing the darkness of her mind like a flashbulb, on and off and on and off and on and off…

_sister… she killed… not yours to decide… important stuff… Merlin, what did she… Rennervate her and get… like minced meat and you want to… since when do you… not going to make… can’t walk, don’t you… hide them… what is it, anyway… of your business… the end of the gallery… her maybe, but him… a spiteful child… too short, are you blind… so throw it over… collapses and then what?… him a target, or is that what you… so what, carry… not enough… and way too long, they’ll… to the cellar… bollocks took forever… out in the open… have you lost your… this will easily… childish toy… Christ, are they…_

A pair of cold hands grasped the nape of her neck and lifted her a bit. The words became more coherent but she didn’t have the strength to wave the buzzing swarm away; no strength and no desire.

_Let me sleep, please._

“Honey, Draco, sweetheart, do you—?”

“M-mum?”

Hermione had never known this voice, the cracking whine of a child who came home with scraped knees and needed a hug.

“Yes, darling, it’s me. I’m here. You’re good now.”

There was a broken sob and one of the hands moved to her forehead.

“Hermione. Hermione, wake up. Hermione, can you hear me? Wait, I’ll—“

“By all means, do go on if you mean to render her a blithering mess for the rest of her life.”

“We don’t have tim—“

“You’re right about that. Draco, sweetie, can you get up?”

Hermione heard awkward shuffling and a slip, followed by a cry so weak and pitiful it vibrated in her bones.

“I know it hurts, darling, but please, you need to get up.”

“If we float them down the galler—“

“I told you, no! Do you _want_ them cursed the moment someone walks out?”

“Nobody’s noticed we’re here. And look at them! They’re in no state to defend themselves, anyw—!”

_“POTTER! IT’S POTTER! HARRY POTTER’S IN THE HOUSE!”_

Hermione’s eyes flew open to the ceiling spinning above her, her vision exploding in stars as Harry dropped her on the floor.

“ _Silencio! Petrificus Totalus!_ ”

Propping herself up on her elbow, Hermione saw the tip of a robe flap and disappear behind the frame of a painting in the corner of the opposite wall, the silenced wizard narrowly escaping Harry’s Full-Body Bind Charm which spilled across the canvas.

Next to her, Narcissa squeezed Malfoy in her arms. “We should have muzzled the paintings before we went in,” she breathed.

Harry ran to the door. “And what, wake them up right then and there?” Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, he took out a paper bag, opened it, and hurtled its contents into the corridor outside. “There, this should be enough to get us to the staircase. After that, it’s going to be a ride. All of you, get up!”

Narcissa stumbled to her feet and yanked Malfoy up, huffing under his weight as he couldn’t get his body to obey. Harry slid across the floor to where Hermione was too busy swallowing bile, hurtled into her mouth by the mere idea of walking. Grabbing her under the arms, he wrenched her off the ground. Her legs buckled immediately.

“Harry, I…,” she gasped. “I can’t, I really can’t…”

“Yes, you can,” he growled, threw her arm over his shoulders, and began dragging her towards the door where Narcissa was similarly occupied with Malfoy.

“So,” the woman said and kicked a pile of fabric which was lying on the floor closer to Harry. “What now?”

Leaning Hermione against the wall, Harry bent down for the cloak. “They still don’t know we’re here. It will take a while before the bloke catches someone’s attention and they undo the charm. A minute, two, and by then we’ll be on the other—“

_“HE’S IN THE LIBRARY! HARRY POTTER’S IN MY LIBRARY!”_ came from the far end of the hallway.

“You were saying?” Narcissa snarled and hugged the barely conscious Malfoy tighter.

Scowling, Harry nudged Hermione towards Malfoy before he disappeared under the Invisibility Cloak. “Make a line. Stick to the wall and go, slowly. I’ll pick up as many of them as I can.”

Blindly, Hermione reached out and her hand landed on the soaked fabric of Malfoy’s shirt, dropping into his sticky palm. Looking up, she found his eyes on her, heavy-lidded and glassy.

He gave her fingers a squeeze.

“All right.” Narcissa exhaled and pressed a wand into Malfoy’s other palm. “You heard him. Hold on.”

Head lolling, Hermione stumbled forward as Malfoy staggered after his mother like a baby duck. Dragged along, Hermione watched as first Narcissa and then her son went through the door, the cloud of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder swallowing them until there was nothing but the pallid fingers grasping Hermione’s own.

A weak tug and she was in with them.

The powder had no smell, yet all Hermione thought of as she shimmied along the wall were greasy stains, a stench of burnt rubber strong in her nostrils. There was no movement to make out, the cloud a perfect curtain of black around her, yet she had to close her eyes to stop the corridor from spinning, a rope walker balancing above a gorge of bodies smashing into each other, doors opening everywhere and spewing new people into the mincer.

And still they were coming, more and more, running and shouting, falling down and stumbling over one another, bodies flying past her, close enough to touch, the hairs on her arms rising from the thought.

Pressed against the wall, edging sideways one step after another, her foot hitting Malfoy’s over and over, Hermione forgot what it was they were trying to reach.

The firmness against her back vanished and she lurched out of the darkness into blinding candlelight, stomach leaping into her ribcage as she teetered on the edge of the staircase, weightless before losing balance and tumbling down.

She hit something hard and her shoulder exploded with pain, her feet slipping on the smooth surface before an arm wrapped itself around her waist, breaking the fall.

Blinking, Hermione glanced up and saw Narcissa’s face, right in front of her, contorted with effort as she yanked Hermione aside and held her up, Malfoy collapsed against her hip.

“Care—“

“H-harry,” Hermione stammered, mind empty except for two words. “Quick and q—“

“ _Muffliato!_ ” came from the top of the staircase, the spell buzzing. “There, now they won’t hear us.”

“Do something!” Narcissa hissed, fingers digging beneath Hermione’s ribs as she descended the stairs, one arduous steps after another.

“Like what?”

Looking round, Hermione saw a few pink flashes of the Confundus Charm shoot into the inky plumes.

“I don’t know, something! Enlarge the cloud! We could use the cover if you haven’t noticed!”

“Yeah, not how it works, lady.”

As if on cue, a voice yelled from the gallery. “ _Reducto!_ ”

“See? Not going to budge an inch, one way or the other. Now stop wasting time and get them down!”

Half-lying on Narcissa and feet tangled, Hermione had the impression the steps merged into one sleek slide, the journey a constant struggle not to slip and bring the other two down with her.

“If you take over for me I can tr—“

The round post cap at the foot of the staircase burst into pieces.

Head whipping around, Hermione managed to catch a glimpse of a man being thrown back onto the darkened gallery.

“Merlin, that was close!” The shock in Harry’s voice turned into anger. “Stop distracting me and go!”

“All right, that’s it.” In one heaving motion, Narcissa draped Hermione’s limp body on the railing and then did the same with her son. “Hold on and one step at a time. Try not to break your necks.”

Sliding down to sit on the nearest step, Hermione grasped the post just below and pulled herself lower, shuffling on her butt from one edge to the other, her ears alive with the swishing of another wand joining the fold.

“They’re on the stairs!” a woman’s voice shouted.

Instinctively, Hermione lowered her head and whimpered, sliding down a few more steps, everything in sharp focus as though a curse was about to struck her any moment.

“Get behind me, Potter.”

“Like hel—“

“Do it!”

Hermione’s bum hit the hard floor at the bottom of the stairs. Turning around, she gripped the last post and scrambled to her feet, noticing Malfoy sitting directly behind her, regarding her with hazy eyes. And above him…

Her knees buckled.

Narcissa was standing astride in the middle of the staircase, surrounded by ribbons of light appearing out of nowhere around her, her wand aimed not at the swirling furnace at the top but at the steps below. From the darkened gallery, wizards and witches were darting out, wands at the ready. But they didn’t get further than the upper edge before they stopped, panic misshaping their faces for a second until a man ran out of the smoky cloud, crashing into them and sending them flying onto the stairs.

They never made it down.

The staircase was rippling, a broken piano keyboard tossing and jerking the pursuers around, cries and cracking filling the hall as they kept falling on the hard edges, skin splitting, bones breaking.

Hermione couldn’t tear her eyes away from the marble surf until a touch of cold fingers brought her back. She looked down and saw Malfoy, pale like raw dough and struggling to get up, pressed against the railing.

But she didn’t have the strength to help him stand. “We have to go,” she pleaded and gestured towards the side door, setting off.

_“LIBRARY! HARRY POTTER’S IN MY LIBRARY!”_

Hermione froze in her tracks.

It was coming from the cellars.

The door cracked open and a man appeared, a line of wizards and witches forming in the torch-lit corridor behind him. The wizard’s gaze landed on Hermione, dispassionate as though he’d known she’d be there, and as she observed the movement of his wand, slow and deliberate and so familiar, she wondered if this sense of inevitability was par for the course for everyone who was about to die.

A silver flash threw the man back into the hallway, the door slamming shut behind him, and she jolted around to see where the spells came from.

Narcissa Malfoy was turning away from the cellar door to the main entrance, blasting it open. “Everyone, into the garden. Get beyond the Apparition line!”

Hermione glanced out of the window and her head went light. Beyond the pillars of the loggia, a gravel path stretched into the distance, long, long, impossibly long, the manor’s iron-wrought gate shut and so far away they wouldn’t reach it in one piece even on brooms.

She didn’t notice falling until she was lying on the floor, the whooshing of charms around her more intense with each passing moment.

“Float them!” It was Harry’s voice that broke through the din.

“No!” A swish-swoosh of a spell and the sound of a body collapsing. “I won’t be able to help you!”

“For Christ sakes, do it!”

_“Finite Incantatem!”_

The second Hermione realised who shrieked the counter-charm, she was being lifted off the ground by an unseen force, feet dangling in the air, stomach acid sputtering from her mouth. The hole where the entrance used to be grew large until she hurtled in between the jagged edges and then the park was zooming past her like a speeding train, the pillars, hedges, and peacocks, the gravel fused together with the grass into a single plane below her, the closed gate looming bigger and bigger.

_“STOP!”_ she screamed, tossed by the spell as Narcissa stormed out of the house far behind her, wand bobbing up and down.

Coming from the left, something hard collided with Hermione and she spun, the black sky below turning into the white gravel above, over and over until the path came up to smack her in the chin and she crumpled on the path, wind knocked out of her and belly sore from heaving.

Blinking, she noticed Malfoy lying motionless a few feet away, nearby the gate which was creaking open.

“Go!”

Hermione propped herself up and looked to where Narcissa’s voice came from.

The woman was halfway to the Apparition line, retreating and ducking curses, a halo of spells surrounding her as though she were being aided by an army of invisible men and not a single teenager. Out of the hole in the manor’s front, men and women were hobbling in an endless line. And leading them…

Hermione scrambled to all fours and covered the few feet which separated her from Malfoy as fast as she could.

He was lying on his side, the bottom shoulder twisted under him, but once she rolled him over his eyes snapped open. Grabbing him under the arms, she took a deep breath and pulled but he was too heavy.

“Please,” she said, fear gripping her guts. “Help me.”

Head tilted, looking up at her as if the need to escape was the least interesting aspect of their situation, he lifted himself up and shuffled back as she dragged him. They passed through the gate but his legs were still splayed in the garden.

“Malfoy,” Hermione pleaded, almost sobbing. “We have to go.”

He spent a few moments gazing at her, calm and strangely free of dread before he pushed himself up and kicked the dirt from under him, landing in her arms and safely beyond the gate.

“I trust you,” he whispered, like it was the most obvious thing to say.

A wordless screech pierced the night and both of them looked toward the manor.

The bloodied face of Bellatrix Lestrange shone in the moonlight against the backdrop of her black hair, mouth distorted with rage as she advanced on her sister with a single-minded focus, pummelling Narcissa with one curse after another, paying no mind to the barrage of hexes raining down on her flunkeys.

Malfoy froze in Hermione’s arms before straightening up and as she gaped at the scene unfolding before them, she wondered if he, too, knew what was coming.

Narcissa deflected the first spell and she ducked the second and narrowly avoided the third but before the fourth hit, just as she was repaying Bellatrix with a charm of her own, an unbidden thought forced itself into Hermione’s mind.

_She’s too tired._

_She’s too slow._

Narcissa’s Expulso missed its target by a good feet.

Bellatrix’s spell was on its way, and as Hermione watched it inch closer and closer, it was as though the air stilled and stopped moving, the clangour in the garden falling silent, everyone on the pathway slowing down. Everything came into focus, a piece of celluloid being burnt to crisp, and Hermione was grabbed by a peculiar need to shout and yell for Narcissa to get away but she couldn’t move and she couldn’t breathe, staring helplessly as the path was split in two by a column of blinding emerald green.

The Killing Curse struck and Malfoy screamed.

It was a sound torn from the fabric of his being.

Savage and hungry and disbelieving, Bellatrix’s gaze whipped away from the bundle of limbs on the gravel and when the gaze found her, Hermione stiffened like a rabbit pinned down by a python.

Malfoy jerked, panting, and Hermione fell against his back as he attempted to stand up, imprisoned in her arms. Screaming once more, he threw himself toward the Apparition line, and then she understood what he wanted to do.

_No, no, no no nononono…_

She squeezed with all her might and pulled, but there was no battling the new will which coursed through his veins, making him drag her closer to the gate as he charged headlong for his mother, and already Bellatrix was pushing forward, a rabid beast on a hunt, her wand finding a new trajectory, the others freeing themselves from their shock and joining in.

But Malfoy didn’t notice any of it. Instead, he yanked himself free from Hermione’s hold, her hands now clasping only a tiny piece of his sweat-drenched shirt, the fabric slipping, slipping, slipping from her fingers and her throat burning as she shrieked on some primordial instinct.

_“HARRY!”_

Just when she realised her hand was about to close around nothing, Malfoy flew back into her arms and she felt a tug at her belly button, shoving the three of them into a tight tube of space until they collapsed in front of the safe house and everything went black.


	15. Chapter 15

**2nd of April, 1999**

“He’s not angry with you, you know,” she blurted out. “Harry, I mean. For… well… you know… _that_. He’s not angry with you. He’s not angry about it at all, actually. It’s pretty strange when you think about it. Well, he is mad at Snape when he remembers, but at you… He gets it, the whole situation… I suppose. Sometimes, he has these moments when you can’t really talk to him, when it’s like he’s in a different world, but overall… So, yeah.”

He looked at her with the same mixture of disgust and concern she used to feel whenever Crooks coughed up a hairball in the middle of the Gryffindor common room.

“O-kay. Thanks for the info?” The model’s wires were connected wrong, but she saw no point in alerting him to it. “Any particular reason you’re telling me this?”

She waved her hand. “Well, you know… I figured it can’t be exactly easy, living like this, all things considered, and if you knew this is… that your involvement is… ahem… a non-issue, not that the whole thing’s a non-issue, I’m not saying that, Merlin, but anyway, knowing that, I supposed it’d make it a bit...”

_Maybe it’d be a good idea to switch your brain on, Hermione?_

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I think he’s forgiven you, is all.”

He chuckled. “Granger, I don’t give a Bowtruckle’s shit about Potter’s forgiveness.” The last wire was connected but nothing happened. He frowned. “And besides, even if I did, I wouldn’t buy what you’re selling.”

She puffed up. “What, you say I’m lying?”

“Not to me.” He turned the device in his hands a couple of times, trying to figure out what went wrong. “The yarn you’re spinning is pretty funny, though. So on one hand, Potter’s understanding of my circumstances and a bigger-picture kind of bloke. At the same time, you acknowledge there _is_ some anger at Snape. Yet he stops in his tracks long enough to exclude _me_ from this fury of his?” Giving a snort of annoyance, he took his wand and cast a spell which undid the work he’d done on the bomb. “Forgive me if I don’t find it too likely.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I think I know Harry better than you do, thank you very much.”

“Did you ask him? Did you two talk about it? Did the topic come up? Or did you divine he started a Draco Malfoy fan club when you had your back to him?” The mock-up beeped softly as he punched in the numbers. “Look, I may not know Potter nowhere near as well as you do, but I do know those in his situation. Those whose loved ones were killed, wives and husbands, sisters or brothers, parents, friends, kids. Hell, everyone’s either lost somebody, or met someone who did. I live with them, Granger, interact with them, talk to them every day. I see what their loss has done, and it’s anything but rational. One moment, the world is one way, and a second later it’s turned on its arse. It’s so absurd you can’t bear not trying to make sense of it, and you usually do it by blaming someone. You latch onto hatred because it gives you purpose, a reason to get up in the morning, something to do but be alone with that void and darkness.”

He pulled the top lever to activate the last Strengthening Charm. “People don’t sit down and weigh the situation up. They don’t view a person’s death as an opportunity to consider, well, maybe the killer was defending himself, or perhaps uncle made that stupid mistake of his one too many times, and what if he was rotten from the first?” He shook his head. “Potter might be the Chosen One but he isn’t _that_ special.”

She gulped. “You think Harry can’t forgive?”

“No idea. But it’s not part of human nature, especially if everything prevents you from moving on.” He gave her a look. “The world we live in is a direct result of Dumbledore’s death, Granger. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t all too aware of it.”

The last cable was crammed in. “And besides, I don’t give a damn about what Potter does or doesn’t do. I caused a person to die, end of story. Nothing anyone says can make it better.” The antenna went up with a loud ping, the bulb lit up green, and he handed her the completed mock-up. “You never get used to it, you know?”

Pretending to inspect the toy after it gave a visible sign it’d been assembled correctly, she did her best to push down the nagging fear Malfoy had all but confirmed.


	16. Chapter 16

**7th of April, 1999**

The sensation was heavy and so, so pleasant.

Black and heavy, up and down, the ocean of sludge rolled gently, propping her up, its dense waves everywhere, folding over her, _in_ her, her mouth thick with the dark muck, ears swimming with it, every cell of her body soaked in it to the point she didn’t know where it ended and Hermione Granger began. The gluey sea breathed around her, jerky and murmuring and alive, its own being, hugging and gasping and weeping, a never-ending expanse of distant sounds which hummed of breaking and falling, crashing and crushing, of death and dying.

But it was fine.

Black and heavy, that’s how it was out here.

Floating on sadness, familiar and ingrained, somewhere far at the edge.

Quiet, mostly.

Until the rumbling of a thunder split the whispered grief, and the endless ocean pulsed white.

“Malfoy, I’m sor—”

The shout, right into her ear, a screech, really, piercing and thrust straight into her brain, a screwdriver pushing through the grey matter till the most remote corner exploded with blood, and she’d have cried if there were eyes, would have moaned if there was a mouth, the lolling slush of her mind roaring to life because _what the FUCK are you doing?_ But then a whoosh boomed and a wet smack landed and a yell flew ( _WHAT THE—dammit you bloody ARSE!_ ), a thud quaking, _screaming_ , and she realised moving was an option because the pain shooting through her was downright unbearable.

Remembering she did have eyes, Hermione wrenched them open.

The black sheet trembled and dissolved, and as it did, shapes emerged from the darkness, hard and grey and spinning like a carousel.

She was sprawled on the ground, staring into the maw of their cottage’s door, suddenly aware of the twig which was stabbing her into a kidney. A few feet away, Harry was standing, head thrown back, a stream of curses flowing from his lips as he held a hand to his nose, chin glistening. And down on the forest floor, Malfoy knelt, his hair gleaming in the moonlight. He was getting up, breathing ragged and loud, scrambling toward Harry.

_Oh no…_

_No…_

She didn’t have the strength to mouth the words, yet somehow flew off the ground and threw herself against Malfoy’s back, shoving him toward the safe house just as his arm flapped up, ready to deal another punch. Stumbling, he turned around and grabbed Hermione by the elbow, towering above her. Pulling, he yanked her up and close, her shoulder throbbing in pain, feet slipping from under her. But as soon as a thought cut through her, the cold embrace of fear that she’d need to fend off an attack, she saw his face and froze.

He wasn’t attacking.

He was crying.

Malfoy’s body crashed into hers, his arms the only thing keeping Hermione up, and her vision burst into stars as he wailed next to her ear.

The last few tendrils of rational thought fled her mind, leaving behind only the animal instinct to get away from the hurting, to get away _now_.

She pushed into him and he staggered, she pushed and he staggered, pushed and staggered, again and again, Malfoy not letting go, dragging Hermione with him, the sound of his howling blinding her with tiny explosions. Finally, her knees gave up and the small galaxies in front of her spun and swirled, but he wouldn’t let go, his forearms digging into her ribs, and he collapsed with her on a hard surface, pinning her down as he wrapped his hands around her waist and sobbed against her stomach.

 _So this is what it feels like_ , she thought when his shudder went through her. _To hold something that’s dying_.

When the ground beneath her yielded and disappeared, Hermione had no strength to fight, to grab onto the harsh fingers which used to be Malfoy, her only pivot as she spun around, tossed by the raging waves around her, rolling and seizing, but they weren’t waves anymore, they were backs, curved and twisted and _rising_ , beasts drawing themselves up, and she huddled in the corner, whimpering, willing them away, but there was no escaping the sounds, the dull hum of them _being_ , always there, always at the edge, their chains snapping in the dark, the pop of his Disapparition, _come back, come back_ , death whooshing from her fingertips before the body hit the floor, merging with it, the boards dissolving and beneath them, a pit of voices, never stopping, crawling over one another, faceless and disembodied no matter how much she tried to see them, just once, please, I’m begging you, one last time, but why, honey, why, why did you do it, and I’m sorry, she sobbed, watching herself vanish on her eyelids, one picture after another.

I didn’t mean to, forgive me, please, I didn’t think and I didn’t mean to, I miss you and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry.

***

It was the cold which made her realise she fell asleep.

She peeled her eyes open, eyelids swollen and heavy.

The light of the early morning had turned the room into a dungeon of washed-up grey. It was sort of beautiful, Hermione had to admit as she lay there motionless, the way the sun bleached the world before coming out in full force. But then her mind registered the smoothness beneath her fingers and she noticed how small the window above her was, or the plastic shower curtain which hung next to it, completely dry.

She was too worn out to be disgusted.

They spent the night on the bathroom floor. Merlin.

Sitting up, she patted her stiff neck. It had no business being upright and in one piece, what with the unwieldy crystal ball her head became. But nothing seemed out of place and if she was going to be careful, she might be able to look up from her empty lap and stand up.

She froze.

Empty. It shouldn’t be empty. But it was.

In fact, there was nobody in the bathroom.

Hermione was up and out the door before she thought of wondering what scared her so much.

Malfoy was outside the cottage, standing with his back to her at the end of the endless hallway, a rigid slash of dirt-and-yellow against the monochrome forest. The sweat-drenched shirt clung to his stiff shoulders, a rag which may had actually been a part of his school uniform once. Head down and hands clasped around his elbows, his entire body was seized with tension, and as Hermione stumbled toward him, gulping for chilly air, a notion struck her that she was trying to approach something which was no longer there, an echo of a person who used to be familiar, now a shaky memory pencilled onto the grey morning.

He broke the illusion before she opened her mouth to speak.

“I didn’t dream it, did I?”

The rasp cut through the frosty serenity, and what had appeared to Hermione like a still painting came alive.

She stopped at the doorstep, grasping the frame with weak fingers. “No,” she answered, the word dragging up her parched throat.

What else was there to say?

There was a sharp intake of breath, Malfoy shuffled his feet, huddling in on himself, and Hermione heard herself continue.

“Look… we need to pack up and go. It’s not safe here anymore. The Order’s regrouping and we need someone to tell us what’s what. Someone who knows what’s going on.”

It was as if an electric current passed through him. Jerking, Malfoy turned on his heel and Hermione gasped.

The ashy sheen of early light gave his skin the appearance of decay, making the protruding bones even more pronounced, the hollow cheeks even hollower. He’d already been on the thinner side, but now seemed positively skeletal, a living corpse. His eyes, though, sunken above swollen bags, were burning with a new purpose.

Not grief.

Fury.

Not moving an inch, Hermione wanted to reach for him, afraid of what he might do, but he spoke before she separated herself from the doorway.

“Weasley isn’t here, is he?” Malfoy bit out.

Resting her temple against the door leaf, she narrowed her eyes. This wasn’t the direction she expected the conversation to go.

“Well, no, but—“

“Where is he?”

She gave herself a second. “I… I’m not sure.”

He took a step closer, clenching his fists. “Who’d know? Who’s running this circus?”

Hermione let the cold door frame ground her disordered thoughts.

Who, who, who was running the Order? Well, professor Lupin, of course, but where did he say he was leaving for? _Did_ he say? She couldn’t remember. All she recalled from earlier was being very, very angry. And professor Moody, had he been the keeper of every base, or most of them? Did the Phoenixes even know which were which? Best bet was the Order crammed itself into the few spare safe houses Hermione knew had been set up. But where? Or was everyone running around the old bases, patching up a new protection? Christ, they were quite stuffed, weren’t they? And where would Ron go?

“There’s a new supply base, on one of the small islands in Loch nan Ceall, southwest of Arisaig,” a voice rang out behind her. “Molly and the elves are probably already there, but I’d—“

Malfoy was gone before Harry finished the sentence, and Hermione gaped into the forest, the sound of Disapparition popping her ears.

“So that’s done.” Harry came to stand next to her, but she paid him no mind, staring into the forest.

He left. No _goodbye_ , no _wait for me_ , no nothing. He simply got up and left.

Her expression must have given Harry a start because he added, “I wouldn’t worry too much. Sure, the base’s still unprotected since I could tell him where it was, but Dobby will knock him out before he knows what hit him.”

She glanced at him. “It’s not Dobby I’m concerned about, Harry.”

He shrugged and turned to return inside. “What’s there to be concerned about? Malfoy will say he’s in the Order, Ron will confirm it, and that’s that. Not our problem anymore. And besides, it could have been worse.” He threw her a look before disappearing in the kitchen. “He could have gone back.”

Following him, Hermione dragged her feet down the hallway.

The kitchen was exactly as they left it the previous night. The cupboard above the sink was gaping open, revealing their thinning stash of medical supplies. One of the chairs lay toppled on the ground. And on the table, a teapot and two cups, one of them full of tea long gone cold.

It was as though the room waited for the occupants to come back, expected a resolution to a story cut short.

Harry was kneeling on the floor, rummaging through the bottom cupboards and taking out the essentials—a large cast-iron frying pan, a tall soup pot, and every scrap of the provisions the Order had smuggled from their source in Finnick’s Food Fund.

“What are you doing?” Hermione asked, stumbling inside and leaning against the wall.

“We’re leaving,” Harry said over his shoulder. “You can’t Apparate anymore and I need to get you to the infirmary before anyone at the manor asks how come Malfoy’s mum knew where to find us. If they haven’t summoned the mole already they’re going to do it soon and I really don’t want to be here when they do. Thought about Side-Along Apparating you while you slept but figured you’d appreciate staying alive.” He glanced at her, holding his Firebolt and one of the two issued Cleansweeps he fished out from the supply closet. “Feel like flying? Too bad, we’re flying.”

The mere thought of balancing on that thin piece of wood, feet dangling high in the air, sent Hermione reeling to the sink.

Harry stood aside and laid the broomsticks on the table. “Look, I’d prefer to avoid bringing anyone in but if you can’t sit a broom I might, dunno, get Neville to come. We could improvise a stretcher or some such. I mean, he’s about as good a flyer as you are but right now he’s also the only person in the Order I can trust. God, I wish Ginny…”

Hermione rinsed her mouth and splashed water on her forehead. Closing the tap, she looked around, and saw him run a hand through his hair.

“I suppose you’re in for a week in bed, give or take,” he continued, like he never trailed off. “Just enough time for me to think about who can be trusted with the Hogwarts mission. I planned to bring along about five people but after what we learned? Yeah, that’s getting cut down.” He nodded, lost in thought. “I’m one hundred percent certain about Neville and Ginny. If either of them is the traitor, then I’m the Celtic god of fun. Luna? Blast it, I hope it’s not her but considering how jittery her dad is… And Ron? Eh.” He gave a sour smile. “Ron made his choice. Who am I to question it.”

Hermione drew herself up, blinking at him. “Hogwarts? But you sai—”

“No.” He pinned her with a glare. “I’m not having that discussion. The cup can wait. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve used up your quota of reckless and stupid. It’s my turn to decide what we’re doing next.”

“But you said!” she pleaded. “You promised we’d get them out of there.”

The silence was so complete it made the heartbeat in her ears sound like a hammer smashing into an anvil.

For a moment, Harry stared at her, comprehension hardening his weary face. “Wake up, Hermione. She’s dead.” He reached down and slammed the soup pot on the table. “The only reason I agreed to do this was because she dangled the traitor before our noses. But after last night? I don’t know about you but I’m pretty sure Lucius Malfoy can’t mind-read the dead. So what can he give us that’s worth risking our lives?”

“He’s Malfoy’s dad, Harry,” Hermione said, the only thing which mattered.

“Jesus Christ.” Harry smacked both palms on the table, leaning on it. “Think, Hermione. Why isn’t Malfoy a Death Eater anymore? Because he decided not to be. Was his mum delivered to our side by a higher power? No, she packed up and came to us on her own. And meanwhile, where’s Lucius Malfoy? Right where he always was, with Voldemort, having a tasty dinner of his boots. Because that’s his place. Because that’s where he wants to be.” One wave of his wand and the stuff he chose for packing rose from the ground, collapsing in a messy pile on the table. “I’ll float the idea by Lupin but if what Malfoy’s mum told us is remotely true, he won’t touch the mission with a ten-foot broomstick. The last key to the Malfoy money box? Yeah, like hell Lucius won’t be under a massive lock and key.” Turning around, he headed for the door. “The only way we could have gotten both Malfoy and his dad out was if we took them both at once. That’s toast. So either he makes the choice to leave himself, or we’re back to square one.”

Hermione didn’t notice that she walked out of the kitchen until he stormed out of her research library and brushed past her, making for what Ron used to call their “body dump”. A ghost hovering in the doorway, she observed as Harry flitted about the tiny bedroom, grumbling about the bottomless purse which was nowhere to be seen, reaching into the bedside table for the golden snitch and shoving it into his pocket, grabbing Perkins’ tent and laying it down, taking their clothes out of the worm-eaten wardrobe and piling them on the single bed which was once Ron’s.

 _What’s going to happen to the corpse?_ she wondered, watching Harry poke out a pair of dusty socks from under their ramshackle bunkbed. Did Bellatrix leave it lying there, stiffening in the cold, or did she bring it inside as one last show of love? Would she fight for her sister to have a proper burial, or let the snake have her, no objections made? Was conscience sinking its teeth into her, or did she think Narcissa got what she deserved?

Should they have tried to take the body with them?

Harry didn’t know. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. And if he didn’t care…

The question slipped out as though it’d always been on the tip of her tongue.

“Where are my parents, Harry?”

Lighting his wand, he shoved it beneath the bed and addressed the dirty floor boards. “What were you saying? Didn’t hear you.”

Hermione clutched her elbows with all her might, barely seeing him. “We made a promise. It’s the last relative Malfoy has and we owe it to him. We owe it to his mother.”

Crouching on the floor, he sat down on his heels and ran a palm over his face. “Jesus, Hermione, do we have to do this n—“

“She saved us,” Hermione went on. “She definitely saved _me_. It makes no difference if she did it by accident or out of self-interest or whatever, we’re not repaying her like this.”

“Well, what do you expect me to do, h’m? March over to Voldemort and ask him if he could allow Malfoy to see his dad every other Sunday, pretty please?” Harry grabbed the bunk ladder and pulled himself to his feet. “I told you, I’m going to talk to Lupin. What else do you want from me? It’s totally out of my hands.”

“And if that isn’t so bloody convenient for you,” Hermione snarled, the rageful beast inside her inching ever closer to the surface.

Harry wrinkled his nose. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

She drew her arm back and shoved him so hard in the chest he staggered and the Horcrux around his neck bounced. “Where are my parents, Harry?” she said, the punch sending a victorious tingle into the heel of her palm.

“What are you, out of your mind?” he yelped, holding the spot where she hit him.

Hermione slapped his shoulder. “Where are my parents?”

“Damn it, I have no idea!”

“Yeah, you have no idea and you never cared to ask!” she screamed, the beast in her stomach roaring in satisfaction when he backed away. “Because you don’t care about anything real anymore. Not about what I suffered or what anyone except you gave to the war, no, no, no, sod everyone, your rubbish is the most important!”

“Okay.” Harry lunged and seized her by the upper arms. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough or maybe the brain damage is already setting in or maybe you’ve run out of tosses to give. Dunno but let me lay it out for you as plainly as I can. We’re on the run. Not in some abstract sense, no ‘well, isn’t everyone running away from something’. No. We have killers on our arses, actual killers whose entire purpose is to find us. And wouldn’t you guess it, we most likely handed them a way to learn where we are. And if we did, if they get us, it’s game over, not just for us but for everyone. The war, the suffering, every single death? Completely and utterly pointless.” His voice dropped, calm and all the more dangerous for it. “So your little pity party? This reform and reward theme you have going on? Not my priority at the moment. In fact, I’d go as far as to say I don’t give a shit.”

Hermione took a step back and wrenched herself free. “And what do you _do_ give a shit about? All your concerns about protecting the innocent, all your speeches about stepping up and making sacrifices for those who depend on us, and what came of it in the end? You sitting around, waxing lyrical about your great burden and waiting for a miracle to land in your lap while _I_ do the real work, while _I_ do the research, while _I_ have to live with the consequences.” She clenched her fists. “You let me go at it alone, Harry. So don’t you dare accuse me of not giving a toss because I’ve done more for the cause these past three months than you in over a year.”

He opened his mouth but she cut him off. “They’re in Australia, by the way. Two years this summer. Two years of them not knowing they have a daughter.” The wrinkle running down his forehead melted in understanding and suddenly it became a lot harder to speak. “I spent the whole night up. Counting the minutes. Picturing it. One moment I was standing in the door to their bedroom, wanting to crawl into the bed with them like when I was little. And then the sun came up and they were watching the news and I couldn’t find the strength to tell them I loved them. I _knew_ they’d be able to tell something was wrong.” She blinked at the mess of blurs the bedroom dissolved into. “You’d think it’d be flashy, that it’d be so dramatic, erasing yourself from your mum’s memory. But no. I wasn’t even sure I cast the spell. Until they turned around and asked if I was a neighbour’s niece.”

She rubbed at her cheeks. “And the funniest thing? All that time considering it and it didn’t occur to me I didn’t actually have to do it. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it. Why it didn’t come to my mind that I wasn’t alone in this. That there were people who could help me. People who’d take them in. Who cared.”

She burst out in hysterical laughter and the tightness in her chest morphed into a grating pain. It was so simple. How come she hadn’t seen it before? So many months spent in sadness and self-loathing when she bore blame for none of it…

Harry stood stiff in the middle of the room, face the colour of the old wallpaper behind him. “Christ, Hermione, why didn’t you tell u—“

“Because!” she cried out, turning to leave. “Because. I couldn’t.”

She walked out into the hallway, realising what a god-forsaken, empty dump the cottage became.

There wasn’t going to be a Ron anymore, grouching over the kitchen pots and trying to recreate one of Molly’s recipes. No Moody would ever again arrive at the door, bringing sparse news and mean looks whenever pressed for details. Not even Malfoy or his mum would settle here and bark orders like they owned the place.

It was just Hermione, well and truly on her own.

“This is so unfair, so bloody unfair,” she moaned, hugging herself. “I wanted to help, nothing more. I didn’t do anything. I cared and I helped and what did I get in return? Being stuck with _this_ , these secrets and these ghosts and I didn’t _do_ anything!”

“Hermione, what are you talking about?”

Merlin, even his footsteps sounded like he was approaching a wounded animal.

“And you don’t deserve it!” she shrieked, whipping around and pointing a finger at him. “You don’t deserve me feeling this guilt and blame, you don’t deserve me protecting you from the truth, and yet I did, two years I did, I didn’t say a word, and why? Out of consideration, because I’m there for you while you’ve been anything but!”

Harry blanched. “How can you say that?”

“Oh, how, I wonder,” she chuckled. “Where have you been when Ron left for the Order? Where were you when he decided that protecting his family was more important than staying with us? I’ll tell you where. Locked in here with your bruised ego or grumbling about me keeping this whole operation running. Did you come to see how _I_ was handling stuff? Didn’t it occur to you I might miss Ron, too? That he abandoned me just as much as he did you? Of course not! It’s your feelings which matter, sod whatever I might be going through!”

“Or maybe you should have gotten up and, dunno, talked to me!” he shouted. “I didn’t go away, we could have shared that stuff. Or were you too busy ‘keeping this whole operation together’ to notice I wasn’t walking around with the cloak on the entire while? That I _was_ around? How the hell am I supposed to divine how you’re doing if you don’t bloody talk to me?”

But his words were a white noise as she tumbled down the void. “Once, just once if you came to ask, but no. What do you know about what’s been happening with me? What do you know about how I handled these past months, being sweated like a house elf to make sure as many would die as possible? If I was tired and depressed, it was more annoyance to you than a cause for concern. You don’t know what the locket’s been doing to my head, and how could you?”

“Sure, how could I indeed, when you made me and Ron believe it was only us who didn’t cope, us who were at the breaking point!” He stepped closer. “I don’t know stuff about you? Then I don’t understand how it escaped your attention we’ve worried about you for _months_.”

Her stomach dropped and he gave an ugly smile. “Yeah, Hermione, must have missed those soirées me and Ron were throwing, those evenings when we were racking our brains about why you kept your distance. Don’t you think we found it massively weird how you never mentioned any personal crap when we thought of nothing else at times?” He raised his hands up. “But hey, she’s a big girl, we said. She needs a shoulder to cry on? She’ll come. No way in hell is she sulking.”

But all Hermione focused on was the image of him and Ron, huddling over a hot drink, _talking_. “And it’s always been like that!” she shouted. “It’s you and Ron who are mates, thick as thieves. I just tag along, picking up your slack and doing your work for you. Otherwise, who gives a crap!”

He puckered his nose. “This is so unfa—“

“I’ve been second in everything, from the start and it never changed. Merlin, even your broom outranks me—“

“What, the…! That was in the third year and we both apolo—“

“No, you didn’t!” she cried out, flooded by those old feelings again, the hurt, the loneliness, the abandonment. “You never did. You never backed me up, never supported me, and you want to know why? Because you don’t care, Harry. Because you’re a bad friend!”

He recoiled as if she slapped him, and a sense of unavoidability swept over her, a notion this was what it had been coming down to, that she was always going to find herself facing him, in this moment, in this hallway.

“ _I’m_ a bad friend, Hermione?” he whispered, shuffling his feet. “What do you call this, then? What do you call counting grievances and nursing them for years, never airing them until the you have the opportunity to badger me with them in a fight? Because I don’t think a good friend does this. A good friend comes and throws this stuff at me the moment it happens so that we can get past it. A good friend would have valued our relationship damn well enough not to let this rubbish rot it out from the inside, so that when the time comes she _knows_ there are people in her corner, someone to turn to for help. So that the only thing she thinks of doing when Voldemort is hunting us isn’t Obliviating her blasted parents.”

Coming nose to nose with her, he put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry about your parents, Hermione, I truly am. And I’m sorry you felt you had to deal with this alone. But none of it is on me. You did this to yourself. You did it to them, for no reason whatsoever.”

His eyes pinned her to the spot as the corridor spun around her and she stared at him open-mouthed, fighting for breath.

Because he was right.

He was right when he had no right to be.

He had no right to hurt her like this.

She couldn’t believe to be saying those words, even as her lips were forming them. “I helped Malfoy fix the Vanishing Cabinet.”

Harry froze, his fingers digging into her shoulder as he made the face, that _face_ he made in her nightmares whenever he finally saw her for what she was.

She shrugged. “I wanted to help.”

Outside, morning breeze chased rotten autumn leaves across the forest floor. Hermione heard it lift them up in a swirl, the smell of cemetery rushing into the cottage, the sound of an ancient tomb opening and letting the stuffy air out, long-buried secrets revealed at last.

Harry’s gaze flitted about, a drowning man struggling to find purchase. “Did you know? About what it was for?”

Hermione gave a tired laugh. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, of course it bloody matters!” he snapped.

She sighed. “No, I didn’t.”

Dropping his hand, Harry backed away. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said, bewildered.

She shook her head. “I didn’t think you had it in you to forgive me.”

“And so you lied?” he exclaimed, fingers running through his hair. “Two years, Hermione, two damned years you looked into my eyes and had me believe things were fine, that _we_ were fine. That we were friends.”

“We are friends,” she whispered to the floor.

“Are we? Because that’s not the impression I got from your rant. Because if it were true, if you were my friend, you’d have noticed I forgave _Malfoy_. That I didn’t really blame him in the first place. But instead you let it fester and in the end it poisoned everything. And why? Because you clung to resentments I didn’t know were there?” He gave a defeated shrug. “I don’t understand you, Hermione, I really don’t.”

 _But I noticed_ , she wanted to say. _Of course I noticed, how could I not?_

 _So why didn’t you tell him?_ a small voice deep inside her mind asked.

Because. Because she felt guilty. And she hated feeling like this, especially when it concerned something _she_ did to Harry.

Because in their trio, she was the one in the right. She was the smart one, the one who saw through everything and didn’t let herself be fooled. She was the one who didn’t mess up, who didn’t land bum first in trouble, the one who understood and cared and helped. She didn’t hurt others, she jumped in front of them and protected them and took their ingratitude on the chin because she was Hermione bleeding Granger who walked such things off.

Because Hermione Granger wouldn’t do something as stupid as get taken for a ride by a Death Eater.

Because she was better than them.

Watching Harry study the floor, two feet and a million miles away, Hermione gasped and a pang of regret pierced her heart.

She should have told him.

She really should have told him.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione peeped, the only words left worth saying.

Harry stayed silent, gazing at the same spot absent-mindedly as though he forgot she was there.

Hermione took a hesitant step in his direction. “Look, I… let’s put a pin in this for the moment. We’ll go to the Order, talk to Lupin, and once things calm down we can—“

“No.” His head whipped up. “ _We_ aren’t doing anything. _We_ are over.”

Perked up by a new determination, he brushed past her and it was that hint of contact, almost there yet firmly avoided, which told her what was happening, made her turn around and run after him, down the short corridor and into the kitchen.

“Harry, no, don’t—“

Back to her, he waved his wand and the stuff he’d lined up on the kitchen table shrunk to the size of doll furniture. “First Dumbledore. Then Ron and the Order. And now you.”

Hermione grabbed the door frame as the room swirled with her. “Please, I can fix th—“

Not sparing her a glance, he crammed the tiny supplies into his pocket, grabbed his Firebolt and the Invisibility Cloak which was draped over the back of a chair. Then, he pointed at the Cleansweeps, the last thing which remained as it had been. “Go home, Hermione. Go with Malfoy. Go find your parents. I don’t give a damn.”

“Harry, wai—“

The pop of his Disapparition ripped through the kitchen and the second he vanished she remembered.

She remembered Ron’s disgusted tone when he defended her to professor Snape.

She remembered coming down into the common room the morning after the troll incident and finding Harry and Ron there, waiting for her so that they could go have breakfast together.

She remembered being in the Great Hall during the end-of term feast, running past the line of tables to where the two of them were standing, lightening up when they recognised her.

She remembered being frozen in terror until they burst into the bathroom.

Sinking to her knees, she landed on the ground with a thud, eyes boring into the emptiness and skin tingling with the quiet, that awful, awful quiet throbbing in the air.

A golden ray of sunshine fell through the kitchen window, ushering in a new day, and for the first time in years, Hermione was well and truly on her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand we’re done! Thanks to everyone who stuck around to read this story and especially commented—nothing gets me opening those damn Word docs faster than seeing someone’s actually interested in what I wrote, enough to put it into words. It means a lot that you take the time to engage. And I’m also really grateful to everyone who waited so long for this instalment to drop—I know what a pain it is to wait for an incomplete story to update, and promise to do something about the sloth that’s my writing speed.
> 
> Speaking of which…
> 
> The next instalment.
> 
> Still needs a bit of work, unfortunately, blow up as it did from one 5k chapter to 18k words and 6 chapters. Go figure. But I’ll be doing my best to start publishing it by the end of the year at the latest, not least because this one? Yeah, it’s going to be a bit different.
> 
> For a while, I’ve been panicking a bit about not showing enough of the Order of the Phoenix. How do they operate? What’s their plan to win the war? What do they think about the Trio essentially dipping? Is there any tension, especially now after the battle? How do people there deal? Why do they fight in the first place? Where are their resources coming from? What does their regular day look like? Those were just some of the important pieces I felt were missing from the larger narrative, and they will play a major part in the second half of the series. Problem is, Draco’s not exactly in the state to give a shit about his surroundings at the moment, definitely not enough to take us on a detailed guided tour.
> 
> You might remember the AN from the start of this fic where I said that the series no longer will have just 2 narrators. Yup, we’ll be getting a new character to show us around the Order.
> 
> Say hi to our new cast member!
> 
> Hello, Molls, nice to have you here. I swear I’ll work my butt off to do you justice.
> 
> Well, that’s it for now. See you around, dear readers.


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